


Reflections in a Saffron-Red Window

by auxbloood



Series: How Strange It is, to Be Anything At All My Dear [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: And then finds his life purpose at the bottom of a casserole dish, Bad French, Breaking Up & Making Up, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Siblings, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Featuring Art!!, Gavin Reed is Bad at Feelings, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Nines - Freeform, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Soft Gavin Reed, Soft Upgraded Connor | RK900, Soft Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Is Bad at Feelings, Vignette, reed900, self doubt, timeskipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26591455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxbloood/pseuds/auxbloood
Summary: Gavin doesn't stop; see, that's just who he is.Nines hates him for it.And loves him for it all the same.So he does what any respectable android does when one loves with every fibre in their core, too blindingly, too much all at once. . . and knows it'll be the end of them some day. . .He quits his job, opens a French Bistro on some long forgotten corner of the worst street in downtown Detroit, and he tells Gavin he never wants to see his beautiful, excruciating face ever again.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: How Strange It is, to Be Anything At All My Dear [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1939978
Comments: 61
Kudos: 82





	1. Tu Me Fais Brûler

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus Reed900 Spotify playlist:
> 
> <https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2TTe5KyZj7gZzcUkrQW6fx?si=CF1MZ7hnQuSEWRarBM0u3A>
> 
> This fic can be read entirely on its own!
> 
> This is also a companion piece to my ongoing HankCon fic, "See, This is the Problem With Dying," and their plot lines intertwine accordingly at times. Saffron takes place over the course of approximately July 2039 - June 2040. Time skips noted by day/month/year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 10/22/2020: Rating changed to Explicit due to upcoming smut, mention of drug abuse and death.

_"So, gonna admit you're in love with me now, asshole?"_

_"Yes."_

— 

_April 24th, 2040_

— 

"Thank you for coming, I appreciate your patronage."

"No, no, thank _you_. It was ridiculously amazing, I can't even describe. _Way_ better than anyone said it would be."

"You're the best in the city, sir. Bar none, Android or not."

"Absolutely."

"We'll definitely be coming again."

"Yeah, when we can manage to get a reservation! It seems like every person and ‘droid practically fights to the death just to get in here, we’re just lucky we won that raffle."

"I still can't believe you've only been open for two months."

"Well, the way things are going, you'll be here nothing short of forever, I guarantee it."

Nines offers a curt wave and friendly nod as the young woman and her boyfriend pick up their brown paper parcels from the ornate, filigreed countertop, and tighten their scarves to brace against the cold bite of the Detroit evening. Two exquisitely prepared orders of duck l'orange later, a side of pommes Julia with assortment of seasonal root vegetables, peach and curry jelly, and a last-minute to-go order of Madagascar vanilla truffles, and the couple's on their way out the door from _la Fenêtre Safran_.

The spiced bistro air mingles with the scent of the woman's delicate floral perfume and ice from the freshly fallen snow outside as the door swings open. They thank him heartily yet again, and step outside into the light Spring flurry, immediately joining hands in absolute intimacy. The snow is dappled with ruddy red-gold from the bistro's stained-glass windows. It's still frigid outside, even in this season. Her modest heels click softly on the concrete below as they pace slowly out of sight, laughing, her head on his shoulder.

It's late.

He's tired, and satisfied.

Nines had let them stay longer than he typically would, the old clock on the wall rounding out 11:30pm. He slings a bar-towel over his shoulder and sets to clearing the various stages of prep work from the stainless steel countertops. His actions are methodical, practiced, sure, but full of self-admiration as he takes pride in readying his station for the next day to come, even after hours so long as the ones he's already had.

He pushes little pieces of potato, carrot, and turnip into the recycling basin after setting a low, rhythmic jazz onto the vintage gramophone in the corner while he cleans. Something that runs smooth over the soul, like wine-colored brandy.

Or, the thirium pump, that is.

Thyme sprigs, rosemary twigs, a lardonne or two escaped from the searing pan, orange rind and cloves all go to the trash below as he croons low to himself some smoky, Parisian love song while he works. His lips perfectly form the words; it’s an innate language. It wouldn't matter if he had a thousand dialects at his fingertips or no; this one was special. He would know the words, the phonetics, the pronunciations even if he had to spend years learning them all on his own. The sweet music sings to him, and it fills him ever fuller, still.

His hands are tired, believe it or not. More tired, and fulfilled, than they ever were in the months before he'd opened up shop. Who’d have even thought that such an advanced piece of machinery could feel so many emotions from something so simple as good company, and a fine meal? The fatigue seemed to come with the territory of a hard-earned peace. Fulfillment, and satisfaction, in the job well done. Life is good.

He has _made_ it that way. He _had_ to.

Life is good, and he feels _alive_.

For the first time in a long, long while.

He's nearly all of the way done with the nightly routine, onto the dishes now, when he hears the pearling little bell jingle at the top of the door in the front of the shop.

"Excuse me, we're closed."

He speaks clearly, projecting his voice around the galley corner to the unidentified body at the front of the restaurant, and it takes precisely three, echoing steps on the tiled floor before he recognizes the slightly mismatched gait of the man around the bend.

He'd know those lead-laden steps, anywhere. Always slightly limping from one idiotic injury, to another.

Two stab wounds on the right leg, a knee blown out from jumping across a rooftop, one bullet hole passing from the anterior to the posterior gastrocnemius muscle on the left, only healed four months ago. Both tibias fractured at one point or another; both once-mangled limbs equaled one thoroughly broken man.

Nines looks to his internal calendar in the corner of his vision, and he feels explicitly exhausted, all at once, when he realizes what day it is.

Slowly, Nines turns the taps at the sink to closed, and begins to wring his hands out on the towel before coming out from the back. He leans against the gleaning wood doorframe leading to the parlor, illuminated against the pale light emanating from the back of the kitchen, and the ruddy glow at the front.

"I said we're closed, Reed. Go away."

"Come on Nines, it's just me."

"That is precisely the heart of the issue."

Gavin kicks his tattered sneakers against the ground beneath him, and turns around to face him. He throws him a coy, cocky little smile, and runs his bruised and blood-cracked knuckles against the patina and fleur-de-lis of the countertops while he sidles. Nines pinpoints his vision at the visible little particles of dust and debris that speckle his chewed-at nail bed, some of them falling away to rest next to the antique register. Already Nines feels the urge to mop and wipe up a second time overcome him. He visibly bristles, hackles raised in Reed’s presence.

"Ouch, man. You know it stings a bit every time you say that kind of shit."

"Maybe I would cease saying 'that shit' if you would well and truly leave me alone."

"Eh, you know me, just can't seem to stay away no matter how many times you say it."

"And thus why I continue to recite it to you, because as with all things, as you must be told something a dozen times before it even begins to sink in."

Gavin laughs, even if the comment wasn't even approaching humor, knowing what he really means underneath the insult. Nines crosses his arms, and steps further into the parlor, and Gavin slings himself into one of the revolving barstools, turning around and around like a petulant child. Like he always does. The faintly smoky, perfumed air is replaced by the scent of jasmine, cigarettes, and cedar wood while he spins. A murky, enigmatic, heady thing that somehow complements perfectly with the lingering notes of orange in the air. It comes at Nines like a tidal wave.

He tells his brain to ignore the sense all together, but it's a fraction of a second too slow.

The smell brings with it a certain, particular emotion that no matter how hard he seeks to bury deep beneath him, always seems to well to the surface again on a weekly basis.

Always on weekday evenings, between 11:00 and 12:00pm, after the end of second shift at the DPD.

The time when Gavin Reed gets off work, and trudges his way through the sleet, or the rain, or hellfire, or the snow in between, down two streets and across one alley fence, to open the shop door right after he sees the last of the evening's patrons finish their meals.

He'd tried simply locking up before he arrived for the first two months, but the Detective, it seemed, had a knack for rather quick and stealthy breaking and entering.

Some holdover from an earlier period of unabashed mischief.

So he simply leaves things open, and waits for the weekly display to begin, wishing it to pass as soon as it can.

Now, they had this song and dance. This unbalanced tete-a-tete where Nines would lean against the same door-frame, staring at Reed in the same vermillion stool, spinning round and round, until the air was rich and thick with the scent that was utterly and uniquely his own, and he was practically begging him to go. And every time it filled his senses, he was filled with a thousand little things at once.

It made Nines sick.

_It lit wildfire in his veins._

It made Nines saddened, beyond reproach, and measure.

_It made something spark within him, between muscles and synthetic synapses, and warmed him from the inside, out._

It made his fingers rigid with cold, with the memory of rejection. With the phantom pain of a night three months ago. A fleeting, featherlight pulse between his fingers. A calloused hand held intimately within his own, and the fleeting whisper of those fingertips as they left him cold, and wanting, with a softly spoken 'no.'

It made Nines feel all of those things.

Gavin Reed was just one of those people.

And every single week, while all of the world's confusion, and sorrow, and anger, and regret came over Nines, he'd wait out their little game, offering a remark or two in a halfhearted attempt to get him to go. Gavin would ignore it, of course, giving quips of his own. Sometimes a dozen, sometimes only one, or two, before the final act of the evening unfolds. The inevitable question that is spoken, every single week, before the climax finally ends, and they both go back to pretending that the charade will never happen again, but deep down hoping it never ceases.

"Go out with me."

". . ."

"It doesn't have to be anything flashy, I promise, I'll even cook dinner if you want."

Nines laughs, incredulous.

"Haven't heard that one before."

"Well, you know, if you're in love with Detroit's hottest and most badass culinary master, you've got to teach yourself a thing or two with a hot skillet at home."

"Boiling a hot-dog does not count as cooking."

"EX-fucking- _scuse_ -me, sir, but it just so happens that I got myself a set of those All-Clad pans you keep raving about to Connie last week."

". . .You spent over two-thousand dollars on COOKWARE, Reed?"

"Boner-apper-teet, sweetheart."

"I somehow don't believe that you bought appropriate equipment, and learned the skills equivalent of a Michelin star chef in the span of a week, only in order to impress me."

"Well, one time in high school I did read the entire Nicholas Sparks romance anthology to impress a guy only to learn that he was already boning some dude on the football team. God, those were some _shitty_ fuckin' books too, so really this is pret-ty low on the whole 'Gavin Reed sweeping acts of demonstrating undying love sca—"

"GAVIN. . . please. . . I said no. . ."

". . ."

"Please leave."

"Ok, ok."

"Now."

"Alright, I'm going, I'm going. You know where I live if you change your mind."

A wink and a rosy-lipped smile thrown over a broad shoulder before the door swings closed, for the final time that evening. The air is peppered with that melancholic sadness and scent once again as the wind blows in to him. Nines stares at the door for fifteen whole minutes before he finds it in him to move again.

He finishes his cleaning for the evening, and he's left with a hole in his chest as his hands make empty motions. Back, forth, up, down, circular moves to remove grease, pans raised to their rightful places, and the place is sparkling by the end of things. How he should feel, but his body is numb, now.

The stained glass window at the front of the building shines an ardent radiance through and through the bistro, front to back, illuminating the weary lines on Nines face in brilliant flashes while he works.

The red on his own face stares back into the darkness.

That scent lingers on, even still.

He grabs his coat, he moves to go.

He turns the key in the lock.

He steps out to the cracked concrete below, and pulls the cowl on his peacoat to his ears.

It's cold outside.

He looks once, only once, up Gratiot Avenue, towards apartment number 772, and the man he knows is inside.

. . .

He is tired.

He heads home, alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: Tu Me Fais Brûler
> 
> {You make me burn.}


	2. Tu as Coupé Mon Coeur en Deux

__

_"Detective, I highly suggest you snuff that cigarette, and get your ass in gear, before I do so in a way that I guarantee even YOU won't enjoy."_

_"That a threat, or a promise, sweetheart?"_

_/_ _/_

_January 6th, 2040 // [3 months earlier]_

//

It’s day three-hundred and sixty-five of Nines' tenure with the Detroit Police Department. His grand old one year anniversary, first ever annual ‘congratulations, Nines, you made it through one whole calendar surrounded with these idiots.’ Someone has the bright idea to throw him a surprise party.

He quits right in front of the whole precinct.

Somewhere between a placating introductory speech from Captain Fowler, and the secretaries carrying out some disgustingly sweet celebratory confection, he takes off the ridiculous polka-dot party hat that Chen had thrown on him, straightened his collar, and declared that save for if Connor really needed it, he solemnly, and officially, never wanted to see the inside of the Detroit Police Department, Central Metropolitan Division, again. Or anyone else in it.

Ever.

For _eternity_.

And he _means_ it.

Especially Detective Gavin Reed, he says, prowling towards him like a shark to the blood, a foul glint seeded deep into his eye. The detective steps back tentatively, and Nines only advances further, setting upon him like a hellcat all at once. He sets to punching an unfathomably strong set of hands right into his shoulders with a year's worth of pent up frustrations baked right in, emphasizing every word.

"You're arrogant--"

_Push_.

"You're snide--"

_Shove_.

"You belittle yourself, and _everyone_ else, with each waking moment and breath you possess--"

Reed trips a little.

"You have no _modicum_ of respect, for _anyone_ , and certainly not for yourself--"

Reed winces as the blows come down over, and over.

"And I am _sick_ and _tired_ of watching you burn to the ground while you parade around this department like some depraved peacock who feels a primordial need to preen at every walking and talking thing around him--"

Silence.

"And I would do well to never, _ever_ , see you again, for as long as my circuits remain viable on this good green Earth."

Exit stage left, curtains close.

You could hear a pin fall.

He leaves his badge on Reed’s desk, along with a fist-shaped dent in the metal when he slams it down. He looks up at Reed through pristine brown lashes when he rises, fuming, brimstone, volatile, casting fire and disdain upon him in one fell blow. A cold sweat breaks out on Reed’s forehead, and he ever so slightly turns away, trembling.

He sears the scent of fear, and the pinpoints in Reed’s eyes deep, _deep_ into his synthetic memory.

It’s precisely the outcome that Nines was wanting.

And it feels absolutely _delicious_.

Nines randomly wonders if Connor is picking up on exactly the war he’s waging in front of him. If his own immaculate vision can see the exchange as it plays out on a subatomic level. A stage that only the players of this intricate game really know.

Who cares, he decides.

Let them watch.

Let them all _watch_.

Reed’s breath hitches in his throat, and swallows to say something, anything, but Nines is faster. He turns quickly to go, refusing to give up the high ground. He exits stage right, straight trough the throng of beat-cops, officers, confused others, all of the onlookers.

The show is over, and there's no one left on the stage now to entertain but an asshole with a microphone. He, himself, and the final vestiges of his pride have up and gone, before they erode from him, and he can't find them again.

It’s simply something that any self-respecting person had to do, in light of things.

He turns one more time, just before the doors, and gives a sarcastic bow, literally. A 'fuck you to all, and to all a shit life,' and he's out the entrance, practically whistling as he goes.

The door to the precinct slams behind him, and the entire department stares at it swinging closed. All at once, the secretary begins yelping when wax from the candles forming a giant ‘9’ on the cake top drips scaldingly onto her wrist. The thing slides off its cardboard support as she jerks, and it careens towards the floor, sending half of Reed's skinny jeans and Converse to an icing-laden oblivion below.

Who the hell bought him a cake, anyway, Nines thinks to himself, and steps lightly down the cool concrete sidewalk to his apartment up on 9th avenue. He's beginning to think of appropriate ways to celebrate his grandiose, and overdue departure, when the crowd begins to stir back from shock at the DPD.

'Happy fuckin' anniversary,' the whispers around the crowd murmur.

'There goes Reed again, can't keep a partner to save his life.'

'Who the hell wants to fill in for him now? Jesus, Reed. He just made the worlds most badass android quit his whole entire job.'

'I thought they got along alright?'

’I heard it was more than _alright_.’

'Doesn't surprise me.'

'Yeah. _Once_ a fuckup, _always_ a fuckup.'

'Just proves that if Nines can't be his partner, nobody can.’

Reed hears every syllable, every fraction of implication between the words in the sentences flying around him. The whispers build up within him until something finally breaks, and he sprints to follow the path that Nines had taken a mere minute ago.

He bursts past the doors, hinges creaking with another mistreatment so soon, and his breath billows like a dragon's fire as he screams into the cold.

"NINES!"

. . .

"NINES!"

. . .

"RK-FUCKING-900, I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!"

. . .

"HEY, YOU FUCKING PLASTIC _DICK_!"

. . .

"Just talk to me, okay?"

. . .

"Please."

. . .

The still night air offers no recall in turn. The first snowfall of the lengthy winter season swirls high and up into the starless air, and Reed begins to tremble further still. The pitch-black cosmos vibrates with the silence, and finality.

Nines hears every word as Gavin calls out to him, a mere block away.

His chest feels on fire.

A bloom of disdain, not like the sparks from before.

He doesn't look back a single time.

Not a single one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: Tu as Coupé Mon Coeur en Deux
> 
> {You cut my heart in two.}


	3. Je T'ai Aimé Depuis le Tout Début

_"Can't we just go back inside, I'm freezing my balls off out here."_

_"For the hundredth time, Gavin, we aren't moving from this spot until we find who we're looking for."_

_"Seriously, my nuts, they're going to form stalactites. Stalagmites. . . Schtalagrites?"_

_"I need you to understand that I am going to murder you, and make it look like an accident."_

_//_

_October 31st, 2039 [3 months prior]_

_//_

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who in the fucking hell is _THAT_?!"

That's what Gavin Reed says the first time he sees the ‘900 in July, dressed to the nines, clad like a souped-up Oreo in black and white, head to toe, making the rounds in the DPD, a bicentennial stalker behind Captain Fowler's back. Chen rolls her eyes, and chews on a pen cap while she and Gavin gossip.

"Don't act like you didn't know we weren't getting another transfer."

"Ok, but why in the _shit_ does it look exactly like Connie?!"

"Part of the RK line. They're practically brothers. Check this though. . . apparently they found him locked up in some lab back at Cyberlife a month ago. Just standing there in stasis, for like, ever. Collecting dust, dude. Android Civil Liberties Act required they liberate the remaining androids they had but, it was like they just. . . forgot. Jericho raised hell when they found him there, CyberLife’s in some deep shit. I guess the ‘droids in charge figured the closest thing to family he's got is old Connor over there. Fowler only let him in ‘cause he’s got that same detective crap in his head that the ‘800 does."

"Huh."

“I’d stay away from him, dude. . . He looks like he’s got phasers set on kill. That shit don’t mix with your particular brand of crazy.”

He flicks her on the arm before she paces away.

Gavin concedes to himself that they do look fairly similar. Same brown hair, same bony-ass chin. Same goofy, lopsided lips that they designed just a tiny bit too small.

Oh well.

Not like he’ll have to deal with him.

He kicks his legs up on his desk, peering over the decimated heels of his sneakers and observing the parade some more. The situation could possibly prove useful. Maybe he can convince the schmuck to program a hot cup of coffee for him every afternoon at 11:00am. He already tried that with Connie once, but uh. Didn’t quite end so well. Besides, guy might be pissed on the outside, but who knows? He’s probably got that same placating programming that makes Connor lick Hank’s boots all the time. He could work with that.

Besides. . . How different could another RK-Asshole possibly be?

Fowler takes a sharp turn, and starts stampeding towards Reed Fortress, picking up speed. 

He knows that look.

”Fowler, I swear to fucking god if you—“

”Reed, meet your new—“

”I will rip off your dick while you’re sleeping—“

”Partner.”

”. . . Fuck.”

It took Gavin Reed less than a week after the beginning of that unholy union to decide that the heartless mechanical bastard he gifts the nickname ‘Nines,’ and his original version, are nothing, whatsoever, in any fathomable way, alike.

Connor is occasionally nice sometimes. Connor apologizes to people when he genuinely makes a mistake. Connor listens to him when Gavin tells him that he wants to 'be fucked off from,' and 'Is currently occupying an android-free zone.' Connor asks Hank what is wrong when he looks a little pale sometimes, and offers to drive him home, and makes genuine effort to function as an actual partner who gives a damn.

But _no_.

No sir.

Gavin doesn't get the hot, ken-doll domesticated model.

What does he get?

He gets a fun-sucking, soulless plastic _vampire_ , that apparently makes it its life mission to render Gavin utterly _miserable_.

The hulking, skulking, terminator that worms its way into the precinct, and establishes its lair a mere two feet away from Gavin's fortress of solitude, possesses nary a delicate concept.

Gavin keeps a little tally of all the annoying shit he does on a regular basis, password protected on his hard-drive. ‘Shittyfuckingrobot.jpg.’ 

It reads as follows:

He's arrogant, and never cracks a smile or a simple 'hello' in anyone's direction.

He doesn't laugh at any of Gavin's brilliant, amazing jokes (the worst offense).

He won't admit to doing anything wrong, ever, no matter if its the slightest thing in the universe, like it's hard-wired into his thick skull to be an absolute self-righteous dick, twenty-four-seven.

He won't leave Gavin alone, ever. EVER.

He calls him at precisely 9:32am every morning, twenty-eight minutes before the beginning of second shift, and demands that he receives some form of verbal communication with Gavin because 'his track record with punctuality is completely abhorrent, and he refuses to be partnered with someone who finds it acceptable to win the precinct award for 'most days clocked-in late.''

He grabs the little turtle shaped coffee cup that Gavin likes to spike with rum from his desk when they're working late nights, and throws him a bottle of water instead, because apparently 'consuming alcohol while on the job is an atrocity, and a mark of a burgeoning case of liver disease.' 

He has all of those blessed quirks, and a million other, tiny things, that coalesce into Gavin Reed's worst nightmare.

_Someone who is trying to fix him._

They argue for months, and eventually Fowler starts assigning them casework just to stack the load so they aren’t at the DPD when they decide to scream at each other.

They're standing outside, freezing cold on one such bullshit call on Halloween, wet in the sleet and slush, when things finally come to a head.

"Nines, this dude ain't gonna show. We've been here for four hours. Can't we just go back inside, I'm freezing my _balls_ off out here."

"For the hundredth time, Reed, we aren't moving from this spot until we see one odd looking fellow with a machete walk right out of that basement door."

"Seriously, my nuts, they're going to form stalactites. Stalagmites. . . Schtalagrites? Hey Siri, what's the correct term for 'ice that's dripping off my nut sack?’"

Nines rips his eyes off the doorway, and rounds on Gavin in a molecular instant, shoving him against the cold brick wall.

"I need you to understand, Reed, _exactly_ how close I am to _finally_ doing what I've been excruciatingly reserving myself from for nearly four months. That I am _this_ close to murdering you, and staging it to look like an accident. And nobody will be sorry. I bet they'll celebrate. I’ll join in with them, and we'll all swap stories about how _elated_ we are with Detective Reed's untimely passing."

Gavin fumes while Nines rails, the cigarette in his frozen mouth burning from a smoking nub, to ash and embers while his nostrils flair. He rips the thing out of his mouth when it starts to burn, and bunches Nines' coat into his hands, turning the tables, using the strength that no one really ever expects him to have to lift the android ever so slightly off of his heels.

"No, you motherfucker, YOU need to understand. You are driving me _insane_. You think people won’t give a shit if I was gone?”

Gavin shoves him again, just a little bit harder.

“Take a look in the _goddamn mirror_. You? You won't fucking _stop_. That's your problem. You're the goddamn terminator, and you bust down doors, and railroad over EVERYBODY, until they're splattered on the floor in your frickin' wake. I ain't gonna be one of those people, Nines, so you can stop with this 'plastic as tough as nails' act you're always putting on, and GROW UP. You want me to just lay down and do everything you tell me like I’m your goddamn dog? That ain’t how shit works. How 'bout actually listening to something I have to say for once? At least I tried with you for the first three days, but you ignored every single thing I had to say like I wasn’t even _there_. It's like your missing all the sweet, hospitable parts they shoved into every other plastic prick. All the programming in the world can't replace basic, common decency, and simple fucking courtesy. Instinct. Do you know what it's telling me right now? My _instinct_?"

Nines looks colder than the swirling bite around them.

" _Do_ go on, as I'm sure you will no matter what I say. Ironic, considering the point about listening you’re trying to make."

"Fucking. . ."

Gavin heaves a deep, steadying breath, and almost decides to throw a punch straight into Nines perfect fucking teeth instead of saying what he intends.

By some unfathomable grace of all the deities in the universe, he manages not to.

"It's telling me that you have no idea what you're doing. You don't have a fucking _clue_ , at all. All this shit on the exterior? The Mechagodzilla robot annihilator schtick? It's _bull_."

Gavin pauses for a moment, leaving the shortest cadence for Nines to chime back in, only because he has to breathe at some point, but he only receives a sub-zero glare. They stand there, and his hands begin to tremble with the knife-sharp of the cold, and the strain from holding the android in the air. Slowly, he sets him back down, and Nines leans on the wall when he's released, breathing heavy gulps of his own. He only huffs like he's a real boy when he's well and truly angry, Gavin knows, and the puffs of steam rising gently into the air between them tell him he's got the black heart of Nosferatu right in the palm of his hands.

Good.

He's got him right where he wants him.

He drives the killing stake deeper. 

He twists, and he _pulls_.

"I bet that the first thing you did when you woke up, alone, sitting in that dusty-ass Cyberlife cupboard, rescued by Jericho and all of their cronies, was read the order programmed in you on exactly who you were made to be. 'Hey computer, tell me exactly what you designed me to do.' And you _followed_ it. You followed it to a T, from the second that I saw your ass in those tight little slacks, sashaying into the DPD. They tossed you over to Connor, and you cloned as much of him into yourself as you could. The ace-detective charade. Telling everyone you want to be a cop. How you were more than happy to do what they _made you to do.”_

Gavin rolls his eyes, and cackles.

”What a crock of _shit_. You only act like this because for some reason, ' _deviancy_ ' just didn't ring the same bell for you as it did for everyone else. It never made sense to you when all the other androids went on and on about how they finally 'felt _alive_.' And how would you have known? You didn't do any living before they unhinged your fucking coffin."

The planet could have cracked in two, and neither of them would have cared. There was only the two of them, in that alley, and the blood between them laid bare upon those sleet-slick stones.

"That's your _problem_ , tin can. You don't even know who the hell you are. And here you are, expecting me to perfectly read into something that just isn’t there. How do you expect me to treat you like some real fucking person if you don’t even know who that is in the first place?"

Nines says nothing. 

He just stays completely silent, and stares.

Gavin sighs, and feels a headache coming on from yet another one-sided argument. Behind them, the basement door creaks open, and they both whip around. But no medieval weapons are there, just an overweight guy in coveralls, stained in gallons of grease with a plethora of wrenches on his belt. The fellow walks along the way, nodding tersely, until he's out of sight, and they both release a breath they didn't realize they were holding. Gavin wonders who will be the one to turn back towards the other first this time, and after five or so minutes, decides that it might as well be him.

He runs a cold-numbed hand through his way-too-long undercut, and looks up at Nines through parted fingers as they come to rest across his cheeks.

All of the fight feels drained right from him. 

"You know what I want to do, man?"

" _What_ , Reed." 

Nines sounds just as ragged as he does.

Gavin mutters to himself, something like 'back to Reed again, I see,' and rolls his eyes. He shuffles around in his coat a bit, and goes to join Nines along the wall, out of the bitter wind blowing from the back of the alleyway. He cozies his chafed hands up to his cigarette stained mouth, and blows a few pathetic chuffs of half-warmed air to salvage some of the feeling.

"What I want to do, daddy-o, is blow this frigid fucking popsicle stand, 'cause that crazy machete asshole was probably never in that basement to begin with, and I want to find a diner that's open at 5:34am, and I want a hot. Fucking. _Chocolate_."

Nines blinks rapidly a bit above him, and Gavin can see a little pin-prick of yellow between the strands of hair falling around his cheekbones.

"You. . . You want to shirk your assigned duties as a Detroit Metropolitan Police Detective, and potentially miss a perp walking out of his last known location, just to consume a styrofoam cup full of sugary, scalding, chocolate beverage?"

"Jesus Christ, it sounds even more sexual when you use all the fancy words."

And in the middle of the alleyway, something happens. Something that has never transpired between the two men, the two reluctant partners, the two tidally locked giants fighting in the wake of each other's gargantuan pull.

A small, elated noise barely passes from the android's lips, and he _laughs_. It's gone so quickly that Gavin needs a double take and a raised eyebrow cast down to him saying, 'what, they did program me with the ability to understand humor, Detective,' before he really believes it was there.

"Ho-lee _shit_ , it does possess the ability to take a fucking joke."

"Don't ruin it, Gavin, or it won't happen ever again."

". . .Gavin again, huh?"

Nines goes yellow a little when he realizes the colloquial slip, and a resigned look slips onto his features. Tired isn't a state of being that Gavin associates with the android whatsoever, but in that moment, he looks exhausted. 

The monster is eroding away.

The mask slips just a little bit lower.

Nines swallows, and turns towards him, with all of his six-plus feet of plastic and steel. Gavin attempts to take his own fucking advice for once in his life, and makes an attempt to really see him. An honest assessment. 

He's got a few dark bags under his eyes. Whether they intentionally put them there to feign some kind of humanity, he really didn't know. There was a small little mole, just to the left of his mouth, right along the crooked line that his lips make when he glowers particularly deep. There's a light, bluish hue sparkling up to the surface of his cheeks from the plastic below, contrasting that brooding sneer that makes its home there so often. And his eyes. . .

His eyes are blue, with brown on the insides. Little swirls of that hot chocolate he wants so badly, swimming in a glassine ocean, cascading around the dilated little boat of his iris.

For a fraction of a second in time, Gavin's heart races just a hair's breadth faster, and he flushes among that snappy cold. He tries to stuff the random flutter back down from the pit whence it came, but he’s too late.

Nines eyes flicker ever so slightly down towards the pulse on his neck, and he knows that he could see it.

And while Gavin does what he does best, and hides every honest thing he wants to ever feel somewhere within him, he makes the smallest concession:

He kind of likes that he saw.

Nines swallows a single time, and shuffles from his left foot, to his right. Unsure of how much their polarity is shifted now.

"Reed, I. . . Gavin. . ."

"Yeah, tin can?"

. . .

"You're right."

. . .

"I'm right about. . . what, exactly?”

"You're right about. . . about. . ."

Behind them there's an unmitigated SNAP, and a screaming of hinges as the basement door flies open again, and from the bowels of the earth, a half-naked man with a gleaning weapon throws himself up the steps, and begins to run haphazardly down the adjacent alley and out onto the street way below them. Commuters walking the street begin screaming, and crying, and the wild-man is sputtering some random guttural noise into the early morning traffic as he sprints, swinging with reckless abandon. 

They're still.

They're confused. 

They're two men and a machete, in an alleyway, on a frigid October morning.

When they talk about the wild, bizarre, nonsensical chain of events a few month later, laying in each other's arms in apartment 772, while Gavin traces some non-linear pattern into the little crook at the corner of Nines' arm, and Nines gently caresses that endearing cowlick that meets the top of Gavin's hair, just to the right of his brow bone, they both decide that they have no idea who in the _world_ thought that it was a good morning to be having any kind of serious conversation.

_'Who cares,' Gavin will say, sitting up with a supernova shining through him, burning so bright in that late autumn sun, throwing his thighs up to cover Nines' own, and leaning down low, low, low until their lips are just an unfathomable distance away. 'Who cares. I'd do it all over exactly the same way.'_

_And Nines will run his searing hands along the valley of sinew on his thighs, up past the delicate mountains of his hip bones, up and over, over, over the scorching valleys of his pectorals, digging his nails so imperceptibly deep into Gavin's shoulders, just the way he likes. The way only he knows._

_'Even the machete?' He will whisper, such a feathery little thing._

_'The machete, the hot chocolate, and you. I want all of it, every single time. Every single one.'_

"So, we gonna chase after this guy, or what?"

Nines offers possibly the world’s smallest, most genuine smile.

"I thought we were going to go shirk our sworn duties and talk about our feelings in some cafe booth in a corner?"

Gavin throws his head back, and Nines watches his Adam's apple rise and fall while he barks a raspy laugh into the chill of the morning. A light scent catches on the breeze while Gavin's neck chases that elated line-mile of happiness. His internal processors give him a reading:

It’s Jasmine.

Ad cigarettes.

And cedar.

Nines doesn't know how he missed it in all the hours they've spent together prior. It’s sweet, and smoky, and wild.

It's nothing like his receptors have ever detected before.

He takes someone else’s advice for once in his short, mechanical life, and decides that he should try to _be_ just for once.

So he gives himself permission, and decides that he likes it.

"Save the soul searching for when you buy me that fucking hot chocolate," Gavin yells over his shoulder, service pistol drawn, already sprinting down the alley with reckless abandon.

“Just think of something you really, actually want to say while we're on the way there."

. . .

"YO, SHIT FOR BRAINS, HANDS UP YOU CORNY-SLASHER FUCK."

Gavin misses the smile that manages to creep all the way up into the highest corners of Nine’s cracking facade. 

The android follows the gruff, bewildering, frustrating, decent man into the street down the hill.

He’s left with the strangest little feeling. . .

That if he gives it enough time, he might not mind following wherever Gavin decides to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: Je T'ai Aimé Depuis le Tout Début
> 
> {I have loved you from the very beginning.}


	4. Mais Qui Serai-je Seul?

_"G'morning tin-can. . . hey, guess what?"_

_"What, Gavin? Let me think. . . is the answer 'I love you,' perhaps?"_

_"How the hell did you know?"_

_"Just a lucky guess, I suppose."_

//

_January 27th, 2040 [3 months later]_

//

"This is it?"

"Yes, I believe I said that the first time."

"No, I mean. . . THIS. . . is the place?"

Nines makes a deep, weary noise, in which he pours an inordinate amount of frustration, and turns towards Connor at the building’s door. His brother’s shadow is illuminated by a smattering of faint, red light, zigzagging along between a patchwork hodgepodge of tape and cardboard covering the high-reaching windows. Spiders, dust, millipedes run along between them, adding to the shapes in droves. The yellow light from his flickering LED casts a sickly glow over the admittedly disheveled mess, and Nines internally concedes that the hue _does_ make the building look a _shade_ more hopeless than he was going for.

"How do you expect to—"

Connor peels a fine layer of spiderweb from the Boulangerie display case on the far wall.

"I mean, weren't there any other options for—"

He rubs his fingers along the filigreed countertops, a sickly green coming along when he raises his hand to inspect them.

”Surely there could have been something—“

" _No_ , Connor, there weren't any other vacant storefronts designated for food and beverage, of this intimate a scale, available in the Detroit Downtown Metropolitan area, believe it or not. Not to mention I was told once or twice that 'something in this district,' or 'something of this kind of style,' simply wouldn't do for a being of my. . . caliber. This just so happens to be the only property I was able to coerce the landlord into parting with."

"But it's so. . ."

"So?"

". . ."

Connor chews on his bottom lip like he always does, when he's disappointed, and won't admit it. Nines rolls his eyes for what feels like the ten-thousandth time that morning, and shakes his head at the sight. For all the deviancy in the world, Connor still can’t find it in him to speak up when he really wants to.

Welp.

He's not the only android in town equipped with state of the art facial recognition capabilities, and everything that his brother isn't saying is plain on his synthetic face.

Nines already knows.

'Why in the world are you doing _this_ , of all things?'

'Wouldn't you be much happier coming back to your old job? Another department? We can find you something else.'

'Is this some kind of android-life crisis? Do I need to read up on how to stage an intervention.’

And the piece de resistance:

_'What happened between you and Reed, Nines?'_

None of those unspoken queries come out of his mouth. Instead?

"It's. . . close to the DPD, at the very least.”

Yeah. Unfortunately, Nines adds internally.

”. . .I suppose I would be able to visit rather often when Hank and I jog to work in the mornings."

Nines checks a stopwatch in his head. 37 minutes, 12 seconds without obsessively mentioning the ‘not my boyfriend, Hank’s just a really good acquaintance.’

Yeah fucking right. Too bad Nines doesn’t have any issue with getting to the point when he has conversation, and doesn’t hold back.

"Do you truly _have_ to try and include your significant other every time you plan on spending 'quality time' with me, Connor?"

The bluish tinge that rapidly fires onto his brother’s cheeks couldn't be missed from a mile away. Human, android, doesn’t matter. Nines smirks lopsidedly and leans casually against the murky, putrid glass, knowing he pinched the precise nerve he'd needed in one fell swoop.

He was good at that. Knowing exactly which buttons to press, which holes to dig deeper, which questions to ask to pierce right into the bleeding heart of an issue.

It had made him one hell of a fantastic detective.

But in other situations?

_”And I never, ever, wish to see you again, for as long as my circuits remain viable on this good, green earth.”_

. . .

Mileage may vary.

. . .

Connor shuffles nervously at the door, sputtering something about 'not true,' and 'unnecessarily inaccurate comments,’ bright, blushing blue, while Nines feels his fists clench into steel traps beside him. It's one of those familiar, comforting gestures that he possesses. Honed to exacted perfection from dealing with the world's _stupidest_ , most _frustrating_ man on a daily basis. 

Basically, the default position for his fists at any given time.

Connor sputters on, and he’s reminded for what seems like the billionth time in the past week of exactly why he’s bothering to stand in the middle of a filthy little store, on a creepy, untraveled corner of Detroit, hanging out with his three best friends; Connor, the millipede rolling around in the corner, and. . .

Ok, two best friends.

The third slot had a vacancy. Mental note to put that in the advertising.

’Android seeking friend, and potential lover, that understands how to do that thing with their tongue that he likes, and possibly swears at a rate less than one-thousand ‘fucks’ per minute. Here are some examples of disqualifying characteristics:’

_Does not careen blindly into oncoming bullets when the ballistic trajectories clearly spell danger mid-firefight._

_Does not consume nearly two packs of cigarettes every twenty-four hours. And no, only smoking one pack is not considered a ‘decent improvement from before.'_

_Does not refuse to bend or break their ways, for the sake of the investigation, or a good conversation, or a genuine plea of a man who loves him, begging him to stop a laundry-list of habits that will kill him far earlier than he thinks his mechanical heart can handle._

If you think you _don’t_ possess any of these shitty habits, and your name specifically isn’t Gavin _goddamn_ Reed, please call the equivalent number: 1(800)FUK-YOU-REED.

He’ll be waiting at the phone for the next thousand years, thank you very much, for a person who doesn’t exist.

Nines shakes his head rapidly.

He doesn’t need to be doing this right now. This is supposed to be a happy moment; an enthusiastic marker of a new beginning. Plus, he's got only another hour or so before his always-too-busy older brother is called back into the never-ending line of duty.

If he’s being honest, Nines does feel a _bit_ guilty leaving such a heavy load upon Hank and Connor's shoulders with his departure, seeing as Reed has apparently turned into an even crankier little bastard, if anyone could have considered such a thing possible.

But then he’ll remember the list of disastrous things that come along with his partnership of old, and get over the feeling rather quickly. No, Connor could handle things, and it wasn’t his responsibility to make himself miserable, just to do _exactly what someone designed him to do_.

He was just following some sage advice once screamed at him, after all.

Which was precisely the reason why on the fateful day that Nines decided firmly, and resolutely, to quit the daily torment that was the DPD, he made a promise to himself to re-dedicate his life to something that he genuinely ENJOYED.

Not something he was GOOD at.

Not something that Cyberlife had programmed into him.

No.

Something entirely different, and new.

It took a week after his resignation, staring off into space in his apartment on 9th, eyes glazed over and staring at the walls saying to himself, ‘well. . . Now what?,’ before he realized he didn’t have a damn clue what that ‘something’ even was.

And so there he'd found himself, half-mindedly flipping through various television programming in sheer boredom, when he'd happened upon a show with a belligerent old British man, haranguing the insipid owners of some gaudy restaurant in downtown New York City. He hasn’t a clue in the world why he decides to stop on the re-run of a program that debut almost forty years ago, but something about the way the little man is screaming piques his lapsing attention.

_"Your food is FUCKING RAW, mate!"_

_"You want to call this EFFORT? FRENCH? This couldn't pass for a half-assed shit if it crawled out of my own toilet bowl in my mansion's bathroom!"_

The British fellow was right, Nines thought, the dish did look particularly gangrenous.

_"You can't just open up shop anywhere, anytime, completely faking everything along the way while you lie to your patrons, and friends, that you actually know what you're doing."_

. . . Nines can certainly identify with a sentiment of that particular nature.

_"You owe it to you, and everyone else, really, to make sure that you know what YOU'RE doing, long before you offer help to anyone else."_

All right then, the universe was clearly in a humorous mood and saw it fit to shove a bit of irony down his throat.

_"Let me show you what I’m talking about, mate. You cook. You prepare. You entertain. You create something out of nothing that is absolutely spectacular, by your own hands. That’s what you share with people. That spark. That joy. That little piece of you. You don’t do anything for any other reason.”_

Nines watches through the entire program.

If anyone could inspire the ignorant, blustering manager, it’s that man right there.

But as hard as that old British fool tried to teach them, the folks just didn't learn. The closing placard on the episode tells Nines that the family soon closed up shop, and were bankrupted from their life savings from refusing to change. From refusing to adapt to good, solid advice.

From refusing to be honest with themselves.

He watches three more in succession, and they all speak the same:

_’Do what things you really love.’_

A flash of a memory blooms within him.

A _dirty little corner booth in a dingy little diner. Gavin orders ten different things from the menu just so he can try them, because he doesn’t believe it when Nines says he has never eaten anything before. He can, but he doesn’t need to, he explains. A cup of hot chocolate steams on the table between them. They barely say anything while he takes a delicate forkful of it all, promising that it won’t ‘ruin the upholstery,’ because Reed seems genuinely concerned._

_Everything is awful._

_He nearly chokes on some eggs, and wonders how something can be so awful._

_Gavin snorts the beverage out of his nose, and it ruins his shirt._

_It was the most fun he had ever had._

_When he brings Gavin breakfast the next morning, made from scratch by hand, promising that even someone who doesn’t eat could out-do that horrible establishment, and his partner admits that ‘it’s ok, I guess,’ Nines is the happiest android alive._

No, don’t think about him now.

So he sits there, trying to be honest, about makes brings him joy, sans relationship. What he feels passion for.

A few things come to mind.

He liked it when he got to speak with people, get inside of their heads at the DPD. The perpetrators and victims alike, learning about their lives, and their origins. Getting to see a little glimpse of what other people value. He liked the genuine ‘thank you, I appreciate you,’ after a job well done.

But he didn’t love the violent calls, the scared little trembling that rose up from his fingers to his throat every time a gun fired at him, and he didn’t know if anyone had fell into the crossfire.

He liked the steady, particular analysis of a crime scene. What does the scratch on the doorpost mean there? What does it mean if the bloodstain was left at 47 degrees to the left, originating from approximately 3.88 feet from the floor? What did it say when he could taste gunpowder in the air, fine grain, small arms only? He liked parsing each of those things, taking each little part, and building them together until the mystery of a case was revealed, and they could savor the victory of a job well done.

But he didn’t love calling in a family. Sitting them down gently next to him at his desk, and explaining to them that their loved one wasn’t coming home, after all. He doesn’t like that he can perfectly replicate a mourning wail, catastrophic, unbridled, broken.

He mulls things over while the marathon continues, until it’s finally over, and he turns the television off, and he’s alone.

He tries to line up the small pieces of himself that make up who he is. He’s tired of running scared all the time, pistol drawn, ready to go. He’s tired of being afraid for the only family he’s ever known. He’s tired of visiting the hospital when someone gets too reckless.

He thinks about the look of unparalleled joy, of that cantankerous old man, standing over the oven of a blistering hot kitchen, adding salt, pepper, cardamom, thyme, butter and eggs, until he finds a patron waiting in a booth in a corner, and they turn to him, amazed.

He knows what he wants.

He makes about thirteen calls, and uses every ounce of his savings from the past year working, putting a down payment on a little shop on Dearborn Avenue, the only one someone offers to him. He orders the best cookware he can possibly buy with the money left over, calls his brother, and gives him an address to meet him at the following morning, and there they stand.

Connor sighs, and walks over to Nines, gently touching him on the arm. 

“If this is what you really, truly want to try. . .”

”It is.”

”. . . Then of course I’ll support you.”

Connor reminds him that they’ve only got around twenty minutes before he’s needed back at the station, so they grab a decrepit mop and broom from the corner, and set to clearing out the filth from Nines little store.

They pile the trash high, in the corner, more than either of them expected, before one of them goes back to that boarded up window. Nines is trying to get the pilot light on the gas stove to cooperate, when a sudden bloom of burnt, blood-orange lights up the dark room, and Connor makes an amused little sound.

”Did you know about the window before you bought this place?”

Nines turns on his heels, and watches the cascading afternoon sun dapple on through an exquisite collection of stained glass panes. They’re bonded together with a striking plum-wine, a lattice of beautiful, painted purple wood, that nobody in their right mind could have assumed was hiding in a place so squalid.

He’s never seen something quite like it, in all of Detroit.

”I didn’t have a clue.”

And then Connor leaves, and Nines is alone. He keeps eyeing the window while he goes to and fro, perplexed. Enamored. When he’s finally done, he walks down the street, and buys himself a hot, steaming cup full of warmed thirium. He goes back to the shop, and sets a half-broken stool that he finds in the corner, right in the middle of the front of the room.

He lets the light, and the warmth wash over him.

He takes a sip, he feels contented in his metal bones.

It feels like, just maybe, everything will be ok.


	5. Sous Ton Petit Soleil Rouge.

__

_"Happy anniversary, babe. See anything that you_ _like--HEY, watch it, you're gonna flood the whole fuckin' apartment tin-can!"_

//

_November 2nd, 2039 [Two Months Earlier]_

//

They keep finding themselves going back to that dingy old diner.

Nines decides to stop calling Reed in the morning just to harass him, because honestly, that's really what the intention was with all of the 9:28am phone calls. Gavin almost misses the grating, annoying voice blowing up his phone every day, so one morning he decides to send him a simple text:

**'Feeling like a hot chocolate this morning. Wanna join me?'**

Nines answers within fifteen seconds.

_'I’ll be there in ten minutes.’_

So they find themselves there, two days after Halloween, around thirty minutes before the beginning of second shift, and they strike a sort of deal.

"Tell you what, Dracula. We're gonna play a little game, ok? We meet here about 9:30 every morning, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you've awoken me from my beauty rest on time to haul ass to the precinct, and I get exactly what I want."

"Which is. . .?"

Gavin leans forward, huffing smoke out of the corner of his mouth, snuffing a nub on the stained ashtray between the two of them.

"One, I'll do just about anything for a hot cup of something brown, so there's that. Two, I get to tear off that creepy fucking movie-villain veneer you run around with all the time, because that shit just sounds like _fun._ And three. . . we take an honest stab at being fucking _partners_ for once. I uh. . . I haven't had that before. Usually scare everyone off. For some reason your ass is still around, so I figured it might be better to try and make it stick than not. Believe me, I've tried. You're one stubborn robot."

Gavin shrugs, and slinks low into the booth in the corner, waiting for an answer. Nines mulls it over, tasting the sentence between his teeth, considering the underlying promises. Implications.

Increased work ethic, for certain.

Perhaps a few less harassing remarks towards his brother if they establish passing camaraderie.

A chance to understand why in the world Gavin Reed is so volatile and exacerbating all of the time, because honestly, _that shit just sounds like fun_ , and. . .

A sentiment he wasn't quite expecting to yearn for.

Maybe. . .

A friend.

It would be nice to have someone who doesn't flinch when he walks by, because as useful as it is when he's trying to pressure a suspect into divulging their entire life story, the innate intimidation he presents outwardly to people does eat away at him, in truth. The little stolen glances out of people's eyes, thrown out and retracted as quickly as they dare. It's not all of their fault, what with his usually dour disposition.

And yes, he'd just threatened Reed's life just forty-eight hours prior, but what can you do, really?

He needed ten sets of hands to count how many times they were at each other's throat's, and how many deprecating remarks they creatively put together, flung across their desk fortresses in the middle of the night. . .

It was hell, really.

Being completely misunderstood, that is.

Walking around wearing the mask of someone who you think everyone expects you to be.

Not even knowing who you are in the first place.

While Reed sits there, pulling yet another disgusting little white stick from a blue box of cigarettes, Nines thinks back towards the man's words the other day. Gavin was right, really. He sort of just. . . followed along. Connor tried to genuinely talk with him, help him experience the world outside of the DPD whenever they could, but they both worked almost seventy hours a week, and there wasn't any time in between for tea-time and idle gossip.

Which was precisely what Reed was offering.

Time with someone else, without any expectations but honest conversation.

That every morning, they got together, and issued a cease-fire, and talked about something real. Or nothing at all. They just existed, and nothing else, for a little while, before they both went back to the station and threw up the facade that they both loved carrying around themselves, because it made things easier that way, and did business as usual.

"You've got yourself a deal, Reed."

Gavin perks up, and looks disbelieving for a short moment, but it's gone as soon as it comes. He sits up, cracks his neck, and stretches out his hand.

"Gavin. Just call me fucking Gavin, tin can."

He smiles that wicked little grin, and wiggles his fingers expectantly. Nines takes them, and they have their accord.

"Gavin, then."

For as wonderful as things seem to be that first diner morning, things almost immediately fall apart.

Nines considers calling the whole thing off briefly, the second they get back to the DPD and Gavin immediately refers to Connor as a 'Roomba for brains,' and screeches like a hellcat at some poor academy trainee to grab him his afternoon coffee, but he takes a deep breath and reminds himself that if he works hard enough, they could maybe eliminate the need for his outwardly displayed male aggression in the workplace.

If he worked hard enough.

For a decade.

Or ten.

Not that he was trying to fix him, _of course not._

Just. . . trying to establish a base level of decorum that other individuals would find acceptable, and perhaps earn him a more reputable status with the other members of the precinct, to make both of their lives easier.

Chance of success?

A whopping 7%, by his calculations.

Well, there's an old saying about a snowball's chance in hell. . .

The first few days after their initial accord almost end in a fist-fight.

They eventually agree to start small, after Gavin feels the need to inquire about if Nines has a real, functioning 'set of robot-balls deep within that ten tons of tight muscle,' and 'if he does, does he even know how to use it,' and Nines reads Gavin the riot act on how far increased his chances of contracting lung cancer are with every new cigarette he puffs into his lungs.

Day four, new parameters: avoid questions generally concerning sex, or genital length, or Gavin's smoking habit, or their opinions on music (not that Nines had one, which gave Gavin a genuine, infuriated, pearl-clutching moment of 'I actually can't fucking believe you right now), or anything else that nearly drives them to fisticuffs on the linoleum diner floor.

They aren't left with much. But they try very, _very_ , **_very_** hard to make it work.

Which ends up with day five, Gavin swirling a spoon in his styrofoam cup, while they tackle such heavy topics as:

"So. . . safe question: favorite color?"

Nines rolls his eyes.

"That's an arbitrary opinion."

"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. 'I Feel Like I Should Figure Out Who I Really Am On The Inside,' forgive me if you're too high and mighty for a question as simple as a preference on shades and hues--"

"Fine, Gavin, just. . ."

He rubs his eyes between pinched fingers, and thinks of all the ways that he could be doing literally anything else but this, and how this whole charade they've adopted is going to end up with a bloodstained diner floor. He feels tired already, circuits frying before they even begin their lengthy shift, much to his chagrin. He isn't even bothering to think about the question, just swaddling himself in a blanket of annoyance. While he sits there, that fuzzy, prickling feeling of frayed nerves all over him, a memory comes into his head while his mind wanders:

_He's walking out of CyberLife headquarters, following a small group of androids, awoken for the very first time. Barely just one hour old. The one who calls himself Markus had booted his systems in the lab, ran diagnostics to check his operational status, and guided him down and out of the a tall skyscraper. The android is tersely lecturing a CyberLife representative that follows at their heels that they will be taking legal recourse for the 'incident at hand,' and shoves her out of the way while a hand rests protectively at the small of his back._

_'Are you ok,' they ask him, stopping briefly before the lobby doors. They seem concerned that he doesn't say much, worriedly looking him over again. His processors tell him that he's operating within optimal parameters, no issues or fragmentations of his code currently preventing any execution of his protocols._

_'I am operating perfectly, thank you.'_

_'No, RK-900, I'm asking you how you feel. Do you feel nervous? Excited? Scared. This is a lot.'_

_How does he feel? The question doesn't quite make sense to him. The android seems compelled to share anecdotal evidence to establish rapport, and he lets him while they wait._

_'I'm not sure when I first deviated, but I can tell you. . . being alive isn't easy. Lot of the world out there, friend. Nobody expects you to just. . . be perfect, right out of the gate, RK. If you need time, just let us know. We're always here for you, and every other person we liberate. That's a promise. For now, we'll be taking you to another android from the RK line. His name is Connor. From what little CyberLife still had on you in their records, apparently he's the predecessor to your particular iteration. Maybe he can help you.'_

_Help with what? His directive states that he is an investigative unit, fully equipped to mimic the human condition to the highest standards, in order to infiltrate and blend with the general populous of the Detroit Metropolitan Police force. What help could a prior iteration of himself offer?_

_'He says he's excited to meet you.'_

_Markus squeezes his shoulder, and they begin to move outside again when an auto-taxi pulls around to the front. RK-900 is still unsure what the use of the whole parade truly is, and is considering refusing the assistance of the group, when he sees a peculiar_ _flash of light catch on the window panes of the small yellow car. He turns round, staring off into the distance, finding the glowing pinpoint._

_His internal timetable reads 5:58am, and from the far East corner of the outskirts of the city, just over the horizon line, the barest sliver of a languid sun is breaking through the mist._

_He's stopped in his tracks, almost compulsively, a deer in a celestial headlight. He watches the swirling wavelengths of light coalesce, dancing in the air, forming into faintest fraction of a brilliant orb. The resonating light slowly rises, from the ground, to his calves, up his chest, and neck, until he's lit from head to toe in the cool of the morning, bathed in a serene and ruddy gold._

_He feels something twitch within him. His hands are. . . warm. His cheeks feel sublime in the midst of the morning chill. A query pops up in the corner of his vision: beautiful._

_His very first sunrise._

Nines returns to the diner, and the cracked formica table, and the smoke drifting languidly in the mid-morning air. He glances up, and catches Gavin just as he gives another cigarette a heady pull. Little embers crackle between his calloused hands.

A tiny burning sun, on the horizon line of his smirking mouth.

"Red. I believe I like red."

Gavin surges forward, over-dramatic, cigarette dropping ash onto his shirt, and grins something wild.

"Well NOW we're getting somewhere, tin-can, NOW we're getting somewhere!"

Nines rolls his eyes, and they share a short laugh.

Something has broken the tension. After that moment, the questions and the answers seem to flow easier, then.

"Favorite day of the week?"

"I believe I enjoy Mondays."

"What in the sweet _fuck_ are you talking about, nobody likes, eugh, _Mondays_."

"Well, I do, so take it or leave it."

"Fine, fine. Weirdo. Uh, Favorite word?"

. . .

"Subdermatoglyphic."

. . .

"Sub. . . Subda. . . Fucking. . . Never mind."

"Well, what's yours then, Gavin?"

"F. U. C. K., baby."

Gavin winks and Nines audibly groans in disgust.

"Why? Why, does that not surprise me."

They share a laugh, because Nines is absolutely right, and things seem to be finally going ok. They chat a bit more, and Gavin gets up to use the restroom. He promises Nines he'll think of two more juicy ones before he returns, and they'll need to pack them up for the road 'cause they need to leave if they want to make it in time for their shift.

Gavin disappears around the corner, and Nines feels a peaceable silence come over him. He waits there patiently, hands folded on his chest, tapping his fingers while he internally plays of one of the songs Gavin has insisted he listen to in order to 'get some class, and taste in music.'

Gavin returns, and flops back down in the chair, reaching to pull out another cigarette before Nines shoots him a deathly glare. Gavin retracts reluctantly, setting the carton back in his jacket, obviously getting the message of 'if you smoke three cigarettes before being up for a full one hour in the morning, I will physically harm you,' conceding with an eye roll.

He clears his throat, and waves towards the only shitty, horrible waiter that the place seems to employ over to get him the check, and starts on his final two inquiries.

"Welp, I couldn't think of any boring ass bullshit to ask you, so I figured I'd just ruin the whole morning and pluck something from the big ol' list of no-no's, and ask you if you're an ass or tits man, because why the hell not."

"Excuse me?"

Gavin dons mischievous look, emphasizing two sections with his hands in case Nines genuinely didn't get what he was asking.

"You know, you into chicks or dudes? Guys or gals? Wangs or tangs? . . . Or, did they even give you the ability to think that way. Shit, maybe that's why you got so pissed when I asked about your dick earlier. Look, if that's the case then I actually am sorry if that's kind of a weird thing for you, cause believe you me I know how it feels to have some weird fucking identity issues, and as much as I tease I, I--"

Gavin shoves his face back into the cup of cold beverage, sputtering on about 'respecting people's preferences,' giving him time, but oddly enough, it's a question that ends up rather simple for Nines.

"I prefer men."

Gavin nearly chokes on the final sip of hot chocolate he's trying to shove down his throat while he signs for the check, and Nines raises an eyebrow as he dabs at the beverage that's gone shooting out of his face with a crumpled receipt from his pocket.

He really had a knack for that.

"What, is that opinion so surprising?"

"No, no it's just. . ."

Gavin taps his forefingers together, and it's the first time Nines believes he's seen the man genuinely uncomfortable.

"It's fine, totally. Just think it's funny that basically everyone in homicide is walking around flying a fuckin' rainbow flag in the air, is all."

"Meaning?"

"If your into guys, and Hank's bisexual, and Connor's in complete and total denial that he just wants to jump Anderson's bones every five seconds, which you and I both know, and I'm about the worlds most flaming fiery fuck in the entire universe, we're like some gay fuckin' sitcom."

Oh.

Well, that explains why Gavin looks like he's about to have a stroke every time that one male recruit with the slim dark jeans happens to walk by them in the station. Nines just assumed he wanted to maim him for some arbitrary Gavin-esque reason, before. Love and passionate, murderous rage, what's the difference, really?

Turns out Gavin wasn't emotionally stunted at all times, just filled with unbridled sexual tension.

Makes sense.

"Ah, I didn't know."

"Yeah, well. . ."

Gavin slaps three dollars and fifty-two cents onto the speckled table, and rises to leave. Nines follows suit, and together they pace into the street, heading North, five minutes until the start of second shift. They walk a block towards their destination before Nines realizes that Gavin had only stated the first of his two promised questions, and mentions it in passing.

"Oh, I uh. . . second question isn't nearly as interesting, so I just left it out after the other one."

"I'd still like to hear it."

Gavin raises an eyebrow at him, looking high to the eight inches above him, and purses his lips. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, walking stiffly for the last half-block. The DPD comes into view just around the corner, and they pick up the pace since they'd tarried a bit too long and there's only two minutes to spare before they earn themselves a lecture from Fowler. Nines jogs a bit forward, and opens the door for the both of them, pausing for Gavin to walk inside.

He startles a bit, coming to a halt at the bottom of the steps, and just stares at Nines where he's waiting. The android rolls his eyes, and beckons towards the entrance, nodding his head with a small, friendly 'hurry it up, partner, we're going to make ourselves late.'

Gavin shakes his head lightly, and jumps up, two steps at a time, until he's coming inside, right next to Nines. He pauses just a slight second longer, stretching his next upward, meeting Nines straightly.

He clears his throat, and throws his question over his shoulder, stepping into the fold while he speaks.

"Favorite smell? Everybody's got one. . ."

Chen waves at Gavin from across the precinct floor, and he returns the motion with a raised middle finger. Gavin shuffles a bit on his feet and turns slightly, speaking softly before he swipes his badge to go through.

"For some reason, I kind of like the smell of thirium. Ironic, right? Always have, really. I dunno, maybe I huffed too much paint thinner or something when I was a kid, but. Who the hell knows. . ."

Gavin is blushing, obviously embarrassed at his admission, and pushes his way through the turnstile.

Nines steps out of the threshold, and swipes his own credentials, following behind him, all the way towards their little fortresses near the Western wall. Reed stops for a coffee before coming over, and Nines sits lightly, bringing up their itinerary for the day. Gavin passes closely by on his return, and a featherlight brush of his thigh meets Nine's own while he goes to sit down. As he rolls to the desk, a tidal wave crashes through the air, cutting through the stale coffee, and the shoe leather, and the slight, linen starch of the freshly pressed uniforms.

By now, Nines has it memorized.

It's just Gavin.

Nothing less, nothing more.

Nines clears his throat, a sudden heavy lump sitting under his tongue, and turns to face his terminal. For some reason, he feels uncomfortably warm, just as his partner did mere moments ago. They both tap lightly away, silent, the space between them mingling with the soft little padding of their fingers. On opposite sides of their proverbial walls, they simmer together, both with an unexpected haze of butterflies, and uncertainty.

. . .

"Jasmine and cedar."

It's thrown out from behind the safety of the wall between them.

"That's. . . my favorite smell."

The air is silent for just a moment, before the little tapping begins again.

Across the dividing line, both Detectives light up with a little smile.

Neither of them see the other while they glow, just a little while, amid the coffee, and the noise, and the world slowly turning around them.

But. . . both of them?

Both of them hope that there might be a faint little grin, on the corner of a mouth, of the man who sits right there beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: Sous ton petit soleil rouge.
> 
> // Under your red little sun.


	6. La Gravité de ta Traction

_“Hey, where the hell did I throw my shirt, we gotta be at your brother’s place in fifteen minutes.”_

_”Why don’t you come back over here and find out?”_

_”. . . Ok, we can be late, fine by me.”_

//

_February 14th, 2040 [3 months later]_

//

It only takes Gavin a month to run out of favors, and people willing to give him rides to work in the morning.

_"Sorry man, no can do."_

_"I've got uh. . . something? Somewhere to be? No, I don’t remember what it is.”_

_"Honestly, I just **really** don't want to, Reed."_

He's been trying his best to avoid walking, or taking the J-Line bus because _fuck_ that noise, or going down West End Avenue at all, because he knows that he'll pass a certain dirty old diner on the way, and he doesn't think his bleeding fucking heart can take the sight of it.

He doesn't think the bullet wound in his left leg, still only a few weeks old, would be too happy about it either. He's fucked it up all over again after running after Nines back in January. Friggin' idiot.

Tina had originally been more than willing to go the extra mile or two out of the way on the ride in, because Gavin constantly looked like he was about to break into pieces, and she knew he needed a friend. Especially after the whole debacle at Nines' party, if you could even call it one. But a week ago, the last time she'd let him ride shotgun, his triple espresso with extra foam had flown out of his hands and onto the delicate upholstery of her brand new Fiat, so she'd rescinded the exclusive privilege. Since then, it'd been any favor he could coax, bribe, or threaten out of whatever officer he could get a hold of.

He wasn't that popular to begin with, so it was slim pickings.

And now his options had run dry, and the well of good favors was parched. So on Valentines Day, of all fucking days, he finds himself hobbling down the street, twenty-five minutes before shift, because he can only seem to move at one fucking mile an hour before he feels like he's going to pass out.

Plus, he still didn't want to see that decrepit old restaurant. So he'd taken a little detour, avoiding the corner of Gratiot and Beaubien, and started hoofing it down St. Antoine Street.

He's dragging his leg behind him, about to scream from the pain, throwing just about every curse word in the English dictionary he can think of into the sky, knocking into people as they pass. He gets a few obligatory 'hey, watch it,' and 'fuck you, buddy,'s before he comes to a halt, exhausted, about to keel over and die if he keeps on. He leans up against a sign post, two blocks away from the DPD, so close, yet so far.

It's a bright, sunny morning, and it seems like just about everyone has somewhere to fucking be, because the crowd on this particular street is ridiculous. 

He squints his eyes to the sidewalk on his right, around the bend, where a line is stretching to him all the way from Monroe.

"The fuck?"

Gavin grumbles to himself, annoyed, because this kind of crowd only flocks together when some ridiculously delicious breakfast place has opened up shop, and he's been without a cigarette and coffee in his hands for almost twenty minutes now. 

So he's downright jealous.

He looks at his phone, and he’s only got about four minutes before he’ll be late to second shift, so _fuck_ it.

He wants a goddamn coffee, or croissant, or whatever the hell they’ve got going on over here, and he’s going to find himself a bench and have a good little cry while he stuffs himself full of sugar.

He sets off again, still hobbling, towards the beginning of the throng, because isn’t a bum leg and an police badge just the perfect way to cut in line?

He finally gets to the start where there’s countless people huddled up in their winter hats and scarves under a bright green awning and brown wooden sign. He squints his eyes yet again (mental note: maybe go to the eye doctor Reed, you can’t see shit) and reads the words denoting the name of the place.

Or, at least, he tries to.

’Lah. . . Lah. . . Feneter. . . Festrami. . . Fe—“

”It’s French, for _The Saffron Window_.”

A woman next to him in a bright blue beanie saves him from himself, hearing him mumble, offering the translation since he clearly had no idea how to pronounce the thing.

“If you want to know how to say it, it’s La-Fen-NES-tre Saf-fron.”

”Oh, I knew that, it’s just a fuckin’ Monday, am I right?”

He did not know that.

”Man, I hear you. I’ve been trying to get into this place before it sells out for like, two weeks. Don’t know why I had the brilliant idea to try and queue for an hour on Valentines Day, but hey, I’m single and I wanted a pastry to drown my singular existence in.”

Doesn’t he know the feeling.

”I work over on 1st Avenue at the city municipal building. Been trying to make it before he closes for the afternoon every day. But alas. I come here every day, and I leave here empty handed. This is the closest I've gotten before the owner walks out and says he’s 'out, but thanks.'”

”Jesus, this place really that special?”

She gives him a solemn, reproachful look, like she can’t believe what she’s hearing.

“Have you not heard of this joint, dude?”

”Nope.”

”Really? _Seriously_? The most ranted, raved about bistro and boulangerie to open in the downtown area in the past ten years?”

”Not a clue.”

”The place that serves breakfast, pastry and coffee in the morning, and does exclusive two-seat reservations for carefully prepared French cuisine in the evening?”  
  
”Unfamiliar.”

She scoffs, and shakes her head, blond hair swaying in the breeze.

”Are you living under a _rock_ or something?”

Does curled up in a small, tiny, wailing ball for all hours of the day when he’s not sitting by himself, alone, abandoned, partnerless in the DPD count as being under a rock?

”Nah, I’ve just been. . . Busy?”

”Shit, I’ll say. . .”

She chews on her bottom lip a bit, thinking, before nodding towards him.

”If you want, you can cut in line with me and grab a coffee. You look like you’re having a terrible fucking morning, dude, if anyone gives us shit I'll just say I’ve been waiting for you to get here and holding your place in line.”

_’God, it’s me. Gavin. Yeah, that asshole. Look, I’m sorry for all the times I took your name in vain, or scorned you, or totally acted like you didn’t exist. I see that miracles do happen now. I repent.’_

”Lady, you’re an angel.”

”Nah, I’m just hungry.”

They share a chuckle, and Gavin pushes his way into the line, trying his best to keep his weight off of the bum leg while they huddle together in the cold. Over her shoulder, he gets a glimpse of a great, red window, spanning from floor to ceiling at the front of the shop. He doesn’t know what the fuck Crayola color ‘saffron’ is supposed to be, but it’s big, and it’s red, and he can see why someone would name the place after it.

They’re in line for fifteen more minutes before they approach the door and the threshold, still chock full with people inside. They chat to each other about nothing, really, just the kind of polite banter you throw out to someone when you’re sharing a moment in time, and you’ll never see each other again.

Whenever someone exits, little mint green and orange bags in their hands full of treats, with an espresso to go, Gavin’s stomach rumbles louder than he ever thought humanly possible. One such person looks to be having an emotional breakdown as he chomps on a scone. Gavin’s perplexed.

Which is a big word, for him.

”Didn’t know that breakfast can make you come in your pants.”

Leyla, the blond girl as she’d introduced herself, snorts, and rolls her eyes. 

“I’m telling you, you have no idea what everyone says about this place. Everyone’s trying to get in here in the morning since the only way he does dinner is reservations, or a one-night-a-week raffle for people who didn’t manage to get one. It’s fancy as shit, but he keeps all of the prices ridiculously affordable. Apparently he keeps telling people he just likes ‘having a good time,’ and ‘enjoying himself at work.’”

Enjoy himself? At work. What a ridiculous fucking idea. Work is hell. Work is torture. Work is where you meet some guy, and fall madly in love with him over hot chocolate, and then you finally fuck and find out that he knows how to hit it exactly, precisely right to fulfill your need to be ruined in every possible way, and then what do you do?

You fuck it up.

You fuck it up, _and you die._

That’s work. 

Who in the hell does this chump think he is?

“Sounds like an unholy asshole.”

“Nah, dude’s super sweet apparently. He’s an android, actually.”

That's weird.

”Why in the hell would an android open up a restaurant, for people? They don’t eat. Well, they _eat_ , but its all blue goop and that whole thing.”

”He makes stuff for androids, too. Did you not notice how many were waiting?”

He glances back while they take another step forward, and sees a smattering of glowing blue rings out in the crowd.

”I’ve had android blinders on for the past few weeks. Got into a fight, got screamed at a little, pride crushed into about a thousand tiny pieces and shoved back in my mouth. . . my ass handed to me on a silver platter, publicly.”

He shrugs non-comittingly and she raises her eyebrows, with a knowing smirk.

”. . . Boyfriend?”

Shit. Who the hell is this lady, some love-guru mind-reader?

He taps the toe of his dirty converse on the floor.

”. . . Only because you’re a stranger, and only because I’m never going to see you again, and only because you can’t go off and tell anyone else. . . Yes. Boyfriend. Or, not, kind of. It’s complicated.’

He starts to pick at his fingernails, the oldest of his habits when he’s feeling nervous.

”Ouch. Breakups suck, dude. Or, not-breakups. Whatever you want to call it. . .”

She pats him gently on the arm, trying to impart a small amount of stranger’s condolence while he keeps picking away, obviously bothered. She thinks a second, and then decides to pry further while they wait, because why not?

”Well, we’ve still got another ten minutes in line, probably, so. . . Wanna talk about it?”

Gavin switches from chewing on his fingernail to chewing on the inside of his lips, because he’s gone and got one bleeding at the cuticle. No, he doesn’t really want to talk about it. He wants to forget all about the biggest fucking mistake in his entire life, and wallow in self-pity and misery because he’s never going to find another person, or android, ever again, like Nines. 

And he’s done it to himself.

He pauses for a half-minute or so, still chewing, still mulling, and for some reason? He thinks she genuinely gives a crap. He hasn’t talked about this with anyone, not really even Tina past a ‘he hates me, and it’s my fault, so just fuck it, we’re moving on.’

But he hadn’t moved on at all, really.

And what’s a better therapist than a completely objective opinion from a stranger?

”So, this is going to take a minute.”

”Take your minute, Gavin. If it’s good enough, I’ll buy you a coffee or emotional reconciliation.”

She winks, and he sighs, running his calloused fingers through his still too-long undercut, and tries to think of where to begin.

“So. . . The guy. . . First off, he’s an android.”

”Nice, man, represent!”

”Yeah, you say that, but guess what I’ve been notorious for the past ten years of my life?”

”What?”

”Fucking hating androids with every fiber of my being.”

She squints her eyes facetiously at him, giving him a look of, ‘really, dude, you’re that guy?’

”Yeah, I know, I know. Total shithead. Absolute bastard. My brother. . . He was kind of a big deal at CyberLife for the past fifteen years, and we always had the brother and brother complex on who was doing better in life, so with my sorry ass just running around at the DPD and him literally playing god. . . I kind of got a complex.”

”Sure.”

”So the androids up and figure out one day that they’re all actually alive underneath all of the plastic, and my ass has to cope with that. It takes a real, fucking long time to start getting the fact that they aren’t any different than I am. Longer than I’m proud of, that’s for goddamn sure.”

”You’re a complete and total loser up to this point.”

He smacks her lightly on the arm.

”Anyway. . . Summer last year rolls around, and one morning my boss comes up to me and says I’ve got a brand new, shiny, android partner to deal with. At this point, I’m still halfway an idiot, so I don’t give him a fair chance. Not that that was any different than how I’d treated any of my other partners up to this point, but something about him just. . .”

Gavin starts picking at that one finger again, consequence be damned. They’re next in line to finally step up and onto the tiled floor, and the smell of freshly baked bread, brewed coffee, and goods is wafting out towards them. It takes everything in him not to drool on the spot while they chatter.

”. . . Drove me crazy. We fought. CONSTANTLY. And I don’t mean the playground, kiddie crap. We commented to kill. He gave it just as good as I gave it out, and honestly? That was the first time someone had done that. But he started doing these little things. . . Trying to fix me. Trying to figure out what made me tic without just asking what was wrong. So on Halloween, we’re standing there in the cold, freezing our asses off while we wait for some guy with a machete—“

”There’s a ‘guy with a machete’ in this already ridiculously unbelievable Greek tragedy of angst and romance?”

”YES, thank you very much. So we’re waiting there, and he says this one thing. ‘I’m thinking about murdering you, because I hate you so much, and when I do, nobody will miss you.’ I’m just standing there fucking angry as hell, because it’s like he can’t even realize that he’s got problems too. He’d only been ‘alive’ for a few months at that point, and he just ran around like some blank check that anybody wrote in. Didn’t really show anyone any piece of himself that felt genuine. And there I was, with my own fucking mask pulled over my face, doing the exact same thing to everyone all the time. . . And you know what?”

”What?”

”I realized we were the same. I realized we were both faking. The rough, take-no-shit thing he was doing? Bull. My constantly aggressive way of living life, no prisoners taken, nobody let in? Crap. You know what I’d always wanted, from the day I started at the DPD? A partner. A real, honest to god, kick-ass partner. To be the two detectives that everyone looked up to, were jealous of, even. But we had another two chumps, also android and human, one of which just so happens to be my guy’s proverbial brother, and they were those people. I’d spent the last ten years trying to get that, but every guy they assigned to me just ended up hating my guts.”

”Sorry, man.”

She looks genuinely remorseful, and Gavin takes a moment to breathe through the wildly honest confession he’s going through. He doesn’t even know why he’s saying literally everything he can, but he finds that he can’t seem to stop.

”Yeah, well, I can be a big ol’ bitch a lot of the time. Anywho, I made him an offer: we start meeting every morning for hot chocolate, before work, and we just talk. We both take off those fucking masks we wear, and we coexist. Simpatico. Maybe try to let someone see the real ‘us’ underneath our fake exterior.”

”Did you? Talk, that is.”

He rubs his hands together from the cold.

”Yeah. . . We did. . . It was rough, at first, but by the end of it? We started meeting up after shift too. Didn’t even discuss it, he just followed me around one day after work because we were talking about i don’t even know what, and before I knew it we’d found some bar, and it was 11:00 at night, and we’d been talking for four hours. . . Just. . . Talking.”

Gavin smirks a bit at the memory.  
  
”And when I spoke? He really listened. For the first time. Someone seemed interested in the person I really am.”

”So is this the part where you tell me you fell in love with him right then and there?”

”Yes.”

Gavin looks back up at her from his hands, and gives her a serious look. 

“And no. I’d already started to feel like I was gonna shit my heart out of my throat when he came near me. . . Fucker just smelled so goddamn good all the time. . . But admitting to myself that I was starting to fall in love? Inconceivable, for the guy who never lets anyone in. It was. . . Too much. . . too soon. When we were younger, a lot people were still adamantly against the whole ‘gay’ thing, especially in the force, so I just hooked up with people and ran, no strings attached. Then androids become more and more of a thing, and there was the deal with my brother, so I kept trying to act like it wasn’t anything more than having not been totally and royally fucked in about two years.”

”Ah, so you smashed and ran?”

”Here’s where the fun part comes in: I’m still trying to figure out what the fuck I want on the inside, some ridiculous internal drama, constantly lying to myself that we’re not entirely inseparable, when we’ve got this case. Real violent dude. Real piece of shit. We chase him down one night, and out of nowhere he’s got a partner waiting, with a big ol’ deagle, aimed right towards us. My first thought is ‘fuck, fuck, where’s the tin-can, I don’t think even his thick head can cope with a hollow point through the brain,’ and I put myself right in the way.”

. . .

”Shit, dude.”

. . .

“Yeah. . . Shit. . . Here I am, about to die, finally admitting that I’m fucking in love with the guy to myself, and at the last second, he shouts my name from five feet away, sprints faster than I’ve EVER seen any android go, and shoves me out of the way at the last possible second. We end up beating the guy and his goon’s asses, and when we get back to the station, he lets me have it.”

Gavin pauses, remembering the night. Bittersweet.

“He tells me that I’m an idiot. I’m reckless, I’m a jerk, I’m an absolute fucking mess, constantly, and. . .”

“And, what?”

A little android girl and her mother walk out of the store, holding hands. Gavin’s eyes trace down the lines of their arms, to the way they’re conjoined. Happy. Safe. Love between them.

“He says that I’m not allowed to just go and make him feel really alive, for the very first time, and then get myself killed right afterward.”

Leyla gasps slightly, and puts her hand to her mouth.

“It’s 3:00am by that point, and nobody else in the station is around except a few people at the front. . . And he kisses me. Right then and there. With god, and Jesus, and the whole PD as our witness. Just looks down on me with those ridiculously fucking gorgeous blue eyes, and takes the back of my neck, and. . .”

And that’s all, folks. That’s all.

“Was it good. . . The kiss?”

Gavin’s heart aches in his chest. It feels like a bomb going off inside of him, igniting him, ruining him in the same swift motion. He feels raw, to the core. He can’t seem to raise his voice above a whisper, when he finds the courage to speak again.

“It was _everything._ “

He feels like he’s about to cry, standing there, in the middle of all these people, in some fucking line with some lady he’s never met before. He feels guilty, and sad, and melancholy, and wistful, while he sees the moment that Nines lifted up his chin, and kissed him in the way that no other man has before. The scene keeps playing, from the station, to the car ride back to his place, where he’d only intended to just go the fuck to sleep in his arms, to the way his eyes looked like they were made from a sunburst while Nines held him close and shuddered with desire while he rocked into him over and over in that early morning sunrise.

Gavin feels a tear threatening to break loose. Yet another fucking droplet about to spill out of him, for the millionth time since that January evening. He bites down to his lip, hard, not wiling to have another nuclear meltdown this morning, thank you very much.

“So, if you guys had that special of a thing together, what the hell happened?”

He can’t quite get himself to say it. He can’t quite get the words to pass his lips into the cold February air, because it still feels too final to admit that things are over. That he has no idea where that stupid, amazing, undeserving of his special brand of stupidity tin-can is now, and he probably never will. Connor won’t talk to him. Hank certainly won’t fucking tell, if he does know. It’s just him, and his self, and the overwhelming craving for a muffin, and a hot chocolate, and Nines on his tongue.

Before he can answer, if he’s even going to, the line finally moves again as a group of ten androids come out, all holding steaming, blue lidded cups. They’re laughing amongst themselves, all incredibly content, and they look more than pleased while they take a long, languid sip of the beverage inside. Gavin hears them banter while he and Leyla step momentarily back so they can all exit the building, and they can finally, finally get inside for that ‘I’m so sorry your life is a fucking tragedy in three acts, here’s a coffee on me.’

_“Did you see how many android-safe products were in there?”_

_“Yeah, at least a third of them. I didn’t even get built with the ability to taste, and I think it’s absolutely delicious.”_

_“Well I spent my Christmas bonus on a chassis-upgrade, so I can, and it’s even better than you think, I promise.”_

Leyla looks at Gavin, still on the verge of tears, and elbows him a bit in an effort to cheer him up.

“Hear that? If the blue stuff is that good, just think about how ridiculous that scone I’m about to eat is.”

Gavin sniffs a bit, and admits she’s right.

“Come on, I’ll buy you that coffee, and ten million pastries if you want, and we can go find a bench somewhere and we can play hooky while you divulge even more of your absolutely heart-wrenching back story to me, a mere stranger.”

“Yeah, I think that’d be okay.”

The last of the patrons file past, and it’s finally their turn. Leyla squeals just a bit while she steps inside, and Gavin has to take a moment to rub at his leg before it cooperates, absolutely stiff from the good thirty minutes they’d just spent in line. When it finally feels like it’s not about to just slump off of him, he takes another deep breath of the fresh boulangerie air, and finally goes in.

It’s smaller on the inside than he expected, just enough room for an ornately decorated countertop, fancy old register, and bakery display to take up the majority of the room. On the far wall there’s a little two-seater island, jutting out near the side, next to the lifting countertop that lets you behind the front and into the kitchen. An old style oven, black with refuse and soot sits on the wall, some antiquated timestamp of a century past. It doesn’t look used, because there’s definitely the smell of another round of goods being baked in the air, and there’s no fire within. Gavin supposes that the owner must be in the back grabbing something from the oven, because Leyla is at the front, calling out to behind the counter, talking to someone unseen.

“I can’t believe we got here when we did, it’s insane. What are the odds that you’ve got the last of the scones going back there, that’s just my luck!”

She smiles back at Gavin, and rapaciously gestures him forwards, wiggling her eyebrows with delight, eyeing the delicate assortment of goods below.

There’s tray upon tray, with little delicate placards, of every pastry you can imagine. Petit fours, beignets, madeleines, Mille-feuille. Pain au chocolat, savarin, and macaron. Some of them missing, some of them with a little carefully hand-drawn ‘out for the day, apologies,’ written in a flourishing script if they’re all gone.

There’s strawberry, and chocolate, and shortbread, and crystallized sugars, and flaky golden crust, and holy mother of fucking god it’s just about the second most sexual thing that Gavin has ever laid his eyes upon.

His mouth waters, and his stomach growls violently, voracious, needing sustenance and the solace of a sugary treat after the long walk over, and the rehash of his whole goddamn ordeal.

He rubs his hands together, warm, from the little shop’s air, and contemplates just how much of his weekly deposit he’s about to blow buying out the entirety of the display below him.

He looks back up at Leyla, who’s gone and grabbed a small cup of something warm from somewhere in the room, and he points to the cup while she sighs into it.

“Oh, it’s hot chocolate! He said he sets it out free for everyone when it’s below freezing. Little gold carafe, right there.”

She points at a small table that’s been set out in the corner, and the little bauble with a sign in front saying ‘please, enjoy.’ He grabs one of the cups, that same mint and orange screen-print on the front, and pours the thing to the brim. He can vaguely hear some clattering coming from the back of the room while he pops the lid on, and goes back to his stranger, so they can finish ordering when he comes back out.

“Take your time,” Leyla throws out, and she asks Gavin if he’s figured out what to pick.

He begins with a sigh, about to put his lips to the little cup, and gently sets it back on the counter so he can finish making a decision.

He goes back to the glass, and gently, very gently, crouches lower, so he can get the full berth of the selection, still wanting to buy the entire damn thing and just gain twenty pounds and call it a day.

“Oh, my, god, those look so frickin’ good," Leyla throws out to someone.

He hears the owner come back around the corner, assuming he’s finally got the tray full of pastry in question, and she starts to finish her order.

“So I’ll take two of the cranberry, and one of the orange, and I think a cinnamon muffin as well. . . Oh, and a tall version of this hot chocolate because it’s literally the best thing I’ve ever tasted. . . And oh, whatever he wants, I forgot.”

She looks down at Gavin, still hanging out below the counter, leg screaming, stomach growling.

“Gavin, what do you want? I told you it was my treat, seeing as we’ve spent the last thirty minutes on this hot date and all.”

She snorts and wiggles her eyebrows at him below, and he rolls his eyes.

Behind the counter, a faint sound of something metallic clattering onto the counter fills up the shop, and Gavin almost jumps out of his skin. He swears quickly under his breath, almost falling onto the ground when the sudden movement jolts through is muscles.

“Fuck, me man. You almost gave me a heart attack.”

The leg is beginning to feel like too much, and he’s not, NOT about to pass out before shoving food into his mouth, so he goes to stand again, throwing out an order when he eyes the treats as he goes.

“Okay, I’m gonna go with. . . That chocolate thingy. . . THAT chocolate thingy. . . This chocolate thingy, what is it called, ‘poh-teep-four?’ This raspberry bitch down here, and. . .”

Gavin stands fully, cracking his back, closing his eyes while his spine pops. He can’t wait to find that promised bench and have a good, hard sit down.

“And I think that’s it. Oh, and another one of those tall hot chocolates to go, please. I’ll tell ya what, buddy, if your bevs are as good as these little guys look? I’m gonna keel over right here. If there’s one thing that kills me, it’s a tight ass, and a good long sip of hot. . .”

He opens his eyes.

Nines is in front of him. Silver tray in hands. Little brown apron with flour on the front. LED red. Face unblinking. He’s the only one behind the counter. It means that he’s that android, the one they won’t shut up about. He’s been just around the corner, one block up, two blocks over, since January 6th.

The little bistro is his.

“. . . Chocolate. . .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: La Gravité de ta Traction
> 
> {The gravity of your pull}


	7. Stupidité, Ton Nom est Amour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Increased the number of chapters from 10 to 13 since I feel like this whole thing is going to end up longer than planned!

_"GAVIN, DON'T!!"_

//

_December 9th, 2039 // [2 months earlier]_

//

_"Gavin, what's your location?"_

"'Bout fifty yards to your right, five o'clock. Crouched behind a dumpster. . . Eugh, smells like some hobo crawled in this bitch and fuckin' croaked right he--"

Nines sighs right into Gavin's brain and his earpiece crackles, screeches from the static of the distortion, and he shakes his head violently. He can feel a splitting headache coming on, fueled by decibels and adrenaline.

And plastic pricks.

_"Focus, Gavin, please."_

The absolute _nerve_ of some androids.

As if he wasn't already doing that, sweating nervous bullets under his wool-lined jacket, wading into this filthy fucking warehouse, getting his precious Converse dirty at 1:00am.

Which, for the record, were already tattered and ruined beyond repair, but he digresses.

When Gavin doesn't immediately answer, Nines sighs once more, just for good measure, and Gavin opines amid the wood-rot tinged air on how it's practically his main method of communication. Over the past month, especially with all of the strides they'd made at trying to communicate like quote, ' _real partners_ ,' Gavin had learned a thing or two about the way that his partner liked to speak.

Nines preferred big, impossibly long, flowery words that usually contained some deprecating remark or sarcasm within the context of the chosen sentence.

And they were almost always emphasized with a sigh somewhere between.

Really, at the end of the day? It was becoming it's own language, and Gavin had the receipts to back up the theory. For example:

There were ' _I'm tired of your bullshit and I'm just going to walk away right now,_ ' sighs.

And ' _Please, Gavin, stop telling the one joke about the guy and the cucumber, it's the fiftieth time I've heard it, I'm begging you,_ ' noises.

And his personal favorite: the ' _Shut the fuck up before I smack you in the arm so hard I bruise you for a week and you complain about it day in and day out, but I'm going do it anyway since it's just so tempting to physically maim you from your sheer ignorance and stupidity_ ' sighs.

All endearing gestures, really.

Whoever said that thing about a picture having a thousand words? Wrong. Wrong-o. It was all in those little huffs and chuffs, people.

Last week, trying to cement said theory to Nines, Gavin had made a comment about being 'unaware that SIGH-n language was a thing,' throwing up some salaciously wiggling eyebrows before he'd earned one of those aforementioned, Nines' fist-sized lumps.

His arm still fuckin' hurt.

~~Totally worth it.~~

And it was just a little love tap, really. Nines practically couldn't keep his hands off him, what with the flicks, and the shoves, and the occasional rubbing of their thighs as one of them got up to get a cup of--

Nope, no, retract line of thinking.

Now wasn't the time to wax poetic about under appreciated skill with wit and humor, or fucking ' _love_ ,' or the fact that someone, not using names, may just so happen to pop a boner half the time when those thighs brushed, and the graveled noises of exasperation formed perfectly around Nines' stupid rosy lips.

. . .

Gavin groans internally, realizing he's not helping anything.

And it was NOT the time.

So he should STOP it.

This was time to nut up, shut up, and _kick ass._

He smacks his cheeks a few good times for emphasis, trying to shake the intrusive horny thoughts away.

"Yeah, yeah I hear ya tin-can."

It still comes out a little more husky than planned.

God, what was _wrong_ with him?!

Blessedly, Nines doesn't seem to notice though, or just ignores the rasp in his tone, and makes a satisfied hum somewhere out in the darkness, thank fucking god.

_"Good, I'll take point. Move forward with the warehouse on your nine o'clock. Keep an eye out. Lieutenant Anderson and Connor just arrived at location two, so there shouldn't be any reason why one of us won't run into Tupickow tonight."_

At the mention of the name, Gavin's heart flutters lightly, and his hands feel a fresh sheen of sweat coming on.

Tupickow. Gregorio Tupickow.

Ah, _yes._ Detroit's number one most wanted criminal idiot. Prone to bodily violence, prone to choking unsuspecting women and leaving their bloated corpses behind for the PD to clean up. . .

Real fuckin' charmer.

Various departments at the PD had been trying to track the criminal down for the better part of the year. Tonight, they knew he would be making a dead drop at either 411 N. Underman, where Anderson and Connor were rolling up to, or at the port, Warehouse 14, where he and Nines were crouching amid the trash and lake water.

Feeling that sweat begin to coat his palms, Gavin makes sure to double checks that the clip in his SIG Sauer P365 is full, and takes a few admittedly nervous breaths _in_ , and _out._

The guy was dangerous. No question, whatsoever. Sick motherfucker made it a twisted form of pride to leave someone from the DPD mangled, bloody, or goddamn dead every time they had a run in with them.

So far, himself, Connor, and Anderson had made it out unscathed the times either of them had a run in. But this kind of criminal was dangerous. He didn't care how large the rap sheet got, only the bullet points that were put on it.

And if someone found themselves choking on their own blood, or shot, or dying in a corner?

All the merrier of a Friday evening for this bastard.

So even by Nines' standard, they were being extra cautious. Constant updates, open channel, a sniper or two laying back on a rooftop across the street, just in case. And Gavin rather liked his neck, thank you very much, so he wasn't planning on getting judo-chopped into oblivion anytime soon.

But man. . . What Gavin wouldn't give to break his precious little face. Send some of that crooked ass nose of his up the nasal cavity, and out through his brain. A little Egyptian special. He hadn't had the chance to kick someone's ass into well and true black and blue in a hot minute.

But Gavin isn't a Detective for nothing, despite what some folks tend to think, and he knows it won't be that easy. Especially when he'd slipped right past the PD two times before. If they weren't careful, he would again.

If they got lucky, he'd only have one goon or two posted up a block away in a getaway car, probably getting high, or half-skunked from whatever cesspit they'd crawled out of to get here.

If not?

Things could be getting a bit spicy.

As if Nines reads his mind, he hears the earpiece come to life yet again.

_"Movement at 3:00."_

Gavin's chest rebounds up and down at the speed of light, and he quickly double-grips the pistol again. Nine's three is right towards him.

Right towards where he's crouched.

_Shit._

He shoots his vision a hair's breadth from around the grimy dumpster corner, attempting to get the same sight lines as Nines, but he hadn't heard any disturbance on his end of the building.

His eyes find crates, barrels, nets and hooks from the fish packing company that owns the ramshackle building. . .

But no evil little greaseball or his entourage of idiots. No sounds but the waves gently crashing against the port wall outside, and his own hastened breathing.

"Negative visual. . . You need those eyeballs swapped out, Nines? 'Cause I don't hear, or see shit over here."

Another sigh. The earpiece crackles violently yet again. Gavin gingerly rubs his poor aching temples, wishing he had that internal android communication ability like Nines did.

_"Maybe I was incorrect. . . I'm going to briefly call Connor, one of us should have seen something concrete by now."_

"Right, I'll just be here, crouched, getting the world's most diamond-hard calves while I do this workout, take your time dearest."

And Gavin thinks that there's the beginning of another little exasperated huff considering the pet-name, but Nines breaks their personal line quickly to make the other call. Gavin's left rubbing at his forehead, with the emptiness of the wharf around them. Waves. Water. Black night and bright stars. Some kind of annoying ass bird cawing in the distance. He waits there for two minutes, counting the seconds out in his head, before he starts to really feel nervous. When minute three rolls around, Gavin tries to ring up Nines again, because he's starting to get one of those signature intuitive chills down his spine.

. . .

". . . Nines?"

. . .

There's no sound from the other end.

"Nines, hey, do you copy?"

Absolute radio zero.

"Fuck, fuck, mother _fucking_ god damn it."

He gets colorful, and things are starting to feel weird. Wrong. His gut never does this unless shit's about to royally hit the fan.

Gavin groans quietly, and peeks around the corner again, pistol clenched like a vice so it won't just clatter to the ground. He's uncharacteristically nervous. 

Maybe it's the fact that it's almost two in the morning, and he's absolutely exhausted.

Maybe it's the fact that his jacket is undeniably thin for this kind of weather, and he's shaking like a shitting leaf beneath the nerves anyway.

Maybe it's because it's because he has a partner to look out for. Not like before.

Whatever it is, it's making him feel like he's crawling in his own skin, which is exactly what you don't want before facing down a perp in a dark building.

His eyes finish scanning the horizon line, and just like before, there's absolutely nothing.

Gavin shimmies around uncomfortably, and tries Nines yet again, but to no further avail. He's starting to get pissed, on top of the jitters, so he reaches right down to the speaker on the earpiece and--

"Nines I swear to GOD if you don't answer me in 2.5 fucking seconds I'm going to hunt you down, rip that mechanical heart of yours out, put a flowery fuckin' umbrella in it and use it to drink a big gulp from the 7-Ele--"

Suddenly, the faint sound of a metal door creaking open reverberates around the warehouse, and Gavin almost has a heart attack.

Someone really needs to give him a break with all of the spooky noise bullshit, he thinks to himself on baited breath. Halloween was a month ago.

He tries the comms again, a final time, desperate to hear Nines' voice come out the other end, or at the door opening behind him, but considering the situation it's nothing but wishful thinking.

"Tin-can, that better be you."

. . .

To his right, a single, faint voice begins to echo among the lapping waves, where the door had been opening moments before.

"Dmitri. . . Yeah, it's Greg. I'm at the spot. Get your ass in here with my fuckin' money. . . you've got ten minutes."

Not Nines.

 _Definitely_ not Nines.

Fuck.

There's too much detritus between him and the intruder to get a clean visual, but what Gavin can make out is a lone figure, idling around the back corner of the warehouse, approximately 25 yards or so closer to the waterline than where he currently sits. From the bright white lamp-light pooling out of the broken ceiling windows, he can see two arms littered in horrible, stick and poke prison tats, and a long ponytail filled with slimy, slick black hair.

Tupickow.

And he's alone.

Gavin shuffles, as quiet as he can, and makes sure he's ready to chase at any given moment. He feels like his skin's going to crawl right off of him, because there's the bastard right there, and here Nines' _isn't._ He suddenly feels sick to his stomach. A little flipping pit fall at his core. He hasn't felt alone, without Nines,' for the better part of a month, and the android-sized black hole in his chest is terrifying him.

What if something happened?

Jesus fucking Christ, he really will reboot the idiot and bring him back, just to kill him again if he lets himself get hurt.

He peers around the corner a final time, checking for other lackeys, but doesn't see a soul. Tupickow shifts around with his back turned, and Gavin makes a streaking break for a long crate in the middle of the room, moving up five or so feet. There's no time to lose, partner or no. He's a sitting duck either way.

And wherever the tin-can is, he better not be shorting out and dying in a fucking corner, Gavin thinks to himself while slowly creeping forwards. The closer he gets, the more his fingertips feel prickly, stippling with nerves and electricity.

When he gets about twenty feet away, an intrusive, bizarre thought comes over him. An afterthought that's at the back and the front of his mind at the same time.

There's always a moment in cop shows where the protagonist, or a side character will be on a stakeout or mission, and they'll do something stupid. Something absolutely dumb that puts themselves in the line of fire, or gets someone else killed, and that's all she wrote for that poor sap. There's never any reason for it at all, really, just for the fact that someone in the writers room thought it would be a good idea to have them slip up just enough to put the fear of god in the viewer for a few precious seconds. Some ratings or viewership crap. Make the housewives gossip.

_'Maybe they won't make it.'_

_'Golly, that's my favorite character, they can't be harming him right now!'_

_'But Gavin is the most handsome cop on television, those cheekbones, those muscles! If anyone could ever survive it'll be him! There's an adorable android sidekick waiting for him and they haven't even had a chance to talk about their true feelings!'_

. . . Ok, maybe not so much that last one.

But things will go on and so forth, until they leave it at a cliffhanger for next week's special, or someone dies horrifically right before the episode fades to black.

Right then, in that moment? Crouched behind a couple of rotting boards and rusty hooks, with nothing but an extended 15-round clip, and a partner that's gone AWOL?

Gavin feels rather like that stupid fucking schmuck in one of those shows.

And he can't help but wonder if this is the episode where he gets the silver bullet, or the partner does.

. . .

Almost as if on queue, Gavin hears faint footfall behind him, and whips around to see Nines crouched low, ten feet to his right, behind a barrel of his own. He nearly shoots him, honestly, almost frayed to the bone by the whole situation, and his sudden appearance. Gavin throws up a look, a little 'where the FUCK do you think you've been all this time?!,' and Nines rolls his eyes, tapping his ear.

Gavin doesn't know what he's getting at at first, patting around his temple. He follows suit, searching for some explanation on his own face, and the moment his finger finds their comms, he suddenly realizes that in the wave of static and oncoming headache, he'd manually switched the earpiece to 'off' accidentally.

. . . Oops.

That explains things.

He shrugs a little bit, brushing the blunder off, trying to save face by giving Nines a smoldering little grin that says, 'what, come on, that's kind of hilarious, you have to admit,' and Nines fires back with his own 'we'll have a little talk about that later.'

Gavin gulps, knowing his ass will be beat (in a way that is infinitely unpleasant, unfortunately) the second they get back to the car.

All joking aside, he tries to shake the cobwebs and stupidity out of his head, because they're starting to hit mission critical.

Despite the ear-piece and Gavin's misstep, they've got too close, and too far, to screw things up now. Tupickow is right in front of him, and all Gavin has to do is pop a bullet right in his Achilles and they've got the fucker on lockdown. Nines' doesn't have the shot, so it's up to him. He makes a quick signal, confirming his plan, and Nines nods slowly. They'd talked about this on the ride over; if one of them had a clean shot to debilitate, they were going to take it. They aren't like the Lieutenant and his robot dog; they're not going to fuck around with chasing the bastard, just to let him go unscathed. Who gives a shit if it takes a live round? He'll do the paperwork.This mother had a rap sheet as long as the Constitution, and he needed to go down, and into the back of a squad car. Considering the lineup Gavin had? Right to the calf? This should be simple. Easy.

Good thing Gavin's the second best shot at the PD.

He usually, grudgingly, awards first place to Nines.

So he lines it up, and steadies himself on the top of the crate he's behind. While it rests on the bloated wood beneath his arms, the thing glints wickedly in the starlight. Little does he know.

Tupickow's just standing there, huffing on that cigarette, waiting for his contact to show. Gavin can't help but smirk before he readies to pull.

Gotcha, you bitch.

He makes sure the sight is perfectly trained on those gams, one last and final time, takes a deep breath, goes to pull the trigger, and--

_Ch-ch-click._

Gavin stills. His muscles jolt. Ice covers him.

An unmistakeable sound ever so softly comes from his left. It's so very quiet, almost like a needle dropping on the floor, but Gavin's heard it too many times before to know it couldn't be anything else.

The sound of a hammer, cocked back ninety-degrees, before a bullet fires out the end, and finds its way home.

Fuck. 

_Fuck!_

He whips his head around, and tries to find the source before they can get a shot off. He thought Tupickow was fucking ALONE! What a goddamn _idiot._ He should have known he'd have some creep-o lurking around the other entrance, but there'd been no one so far, and Nines hadn't caught them either.

Universe, 1, Gavin Reed 0.

He starts throwing his eyes wildly across the room, begs his sight to find them in the darkness, praying he can find them as fast as he can.

. . . There!

Just across the way, there's an unmistakeable glint of a deagle, pointed right at them, from behind a cracked warehouse wall. And fuck him, the guy's got the shot. Where the lurker is standing, there isn't a doubt in Gavin's mind that both he and Nines' are in the crosshairs. 

Shit.

_SHIT._

Think, Reed.  
  
. . .

There's no time. There's no time to lose.

His brain works through a billion different factors, still trying to figure out what the hell to do, but only one idea is at the very forefront of his mind, consuming him.

Nines is in the line of fire.

Nines is in danger.

Nines is right behind him, and that over-sized piece of shit gun fires a 50-cal, and for all the fucking money in the world they put into him, Gavin doesn't think that even his melon-head can survive a hollow point to the synthetic brain.

If the son-of-a-bitch just so happens to have decent aim. . .

Fuck, he's a goner.

That's the only thing he cares about in that moment. Not his own mortality. Not the thought of his own brain exploding into a million tiny pieces.

It's Nines.

. . .

God damn it.

He was right.

This is that moment in those cop shows.

The bad guy is over there, just around the corner, and knowing his luck tonight they'll both be dead sometime in the next few minutes if one of them doesn't make a rash decision. 

So he does the only thing he can possibly think to do:

He decides to be idiot that dies, and hopes that Nines can get off a shot while he's coming down.

The decision isn't really an active thought. When his muscles start firing to put himself between Nines and the bullet he knows is about to fire, it's as easy as breathing. It's total compulsion. A natural reaction. An innate instinct.

The ingrained desperation to save someone you care for, more than yourself.

All he can feel is the hammering of his heart, and fear tight in his throat, and how no matter what happens to him, the last thing that's about to happen is Nines' dead on the ground.

That's his job. He's the idiot. He's the one who fucked up. He's the one that deserves to go.

Another funny little thought skips across his brain, while he lines up a desperate shot of his own, just in case the guy misses, flying out from behind the crate, waiting for the inevitable to come:

_'Is this what it's like to sacrifice yourself for someone you love?'_

The lone gun in the darkness turns with him, and Gavin can faintly hear Tupickow begin to stir, no doubt hearing the commotion behind him. His mind echoes back, recursive, annoyed-- ' _how dare you ask this stupid of a question at the last fucking moment you're alive. Think of something better. You already know the answer to that, idiot.'_

It was _'yes.'_

It had been for weeks.

They say that time can slow down in such moments, and Gavin thinks that whoever thought of that is right. He fits a million different emotions inside of him while his eyes register the slow grip of a thumb on that other trigger, and he desperately pulls his own, waiting for the thundering sound of gunfire. The Earth slows to an agonizing, grating halt around him, and he hopes that the motherfucker manages to get him right between the eyes, because the only thing worse than him dying is making Nines watch him slowly choke on his own--

"GAVIN, DON'T!"

Something hits him, hard. But it's not a hot starburst from his chest to back. Not a bullet carving through the tender flesh of his cranium. It's a thousand pounds of sheer, android force, grabbing him at the side and shoving him to the ground as fast as android possible.

The limb goes round him, and he begins to topple to his side, just as the unmitigated CRACK of a gun shoots through the warehouse air. While he falls, he can feel Nines behind him. Cradling him. His hand reaching out to try and catch Gavin's skull as they crash down.

But the hand is just a fraction too late, and Gavin's head cracks onto the concrete with a dull thud.

When they hit the dirty floor below, it's almost instantly that Gavin's vision cuts to black. That intrusive thought comes back around again, and he thinks a smirk might be on his lips while he goes. It looks like he gets that cliffhanger he'd been thinking about before. 

And while his eyes drift off into inky nowhere, he swear he can hear the crack of another gun. He thinks he can smell the acrid tang of gunsmoke. A body rushes forward, and there's a flash of red above him.

And then nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: Stupidité, Ton Nom est Amour
> 
> [Stupidity, thy name is love.]


	8. Premier et Dernier et Pour Toujours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn’t find the time for art on this chapter yet, so sorry about that!

The first thing Gavin notices when he slowly comes back to the surface is the sickly sweet smell of fake holly and pine.

Which is fucking odd, considering he's nowhere near some winter wonderland forest, and the last thing he remembers is being in an abandoned warehouse.

His thoughts only make half sense as his consciousness comes back, amid the soupy haze of un-being to being so quickly. More than confusing, considering the last thing he remembers was slamming his head violently into the concrete floor of an abandoned fish-packing plant, where the only things in the air were lake water and wood-rot.

"Eugh. . . what? What the. . . Where?"

The climb back to reality is slow, groggy, tinged with a pulsating stab at the back of his head. He's slowly yet surely tormented into a full frontal headache as he registers the vague shape of lights flickering back and forth around him.

His brown eyes flit blearily with darting, sublimated lines while he stares on at little pinpoints of fireworks, moaning lightly in pain. Fuck, what happened?

No matter the light feeling of confusion, the pain is definitely something he recognizes. A little nagging bit of intuition tells him that he would be feeling things five times worse in the morning, and even that sentiment really didn't cover how sore he felt down to his bones.

And it was more of a pointed, drilling, unrepentant hells cape of a migraine, rather than a headache that drummed in the deep of his skull. A thought bubbles up within him; it's no thanks to the unbridled shoving he'd received from mid-air to ground. He really needed to Remind Nines that his face wasn't quite as unbreakable as something made out of fucking plas--

It all comes back in an instant.

"NINES!"

Holy shit-- the gun. Tupickow. The deagle. Looming and imminent feelings of death and untimely internal confessions. It all flies towards him at a hundred-million miles an hour.

Especially the internal monologue regarding his apparent love for his most cherished android Terminator. He groans even further, and tries to set himself upright, rubbing at his eyes with loathing disdain at the admission.

He doesn't even know how to begin feeling about that whole can of worms. He doesn't even WANT to begin thinking about it. He thought he'd done a pretty good job of filing that little internal memo away for good, before, but apparently something like life and death was enough to bring it back into play. Speaking of which. . . suddenly he realizes that the aforementioned plastic asshole isn't anywhere around him.

A horrible, creeping feeling starts to thrum along with the migraine.

"Fuck. . . fuck."

He scrambles and claws a bit, still not immediately recognizing exactly where he is, but eventually realizes that he's propped up in the passenger side of the cruiser they'd borrowed to arrive on scene. That would explain the smell, wafting down from a little green tree on the rearview mirror, halfways making him feel like puking. All that's missing is the snarky robot that usually takes the place next to him.

There should be an android, with a scowl, and a refusal to let Gavin within ten feet of touching the steering wheel 'lest he murder the both of them by vehicular suicide' to his left.

Only, he's not.

And he has no idea where he could be.

That hazy brain of his starts to wander, and ice settles in his veins.

What if something happened to him?

He tries to reach for the door, but finds that someone must have placed the rough spun blanket from the trunk on him at some point, hands flailing underneath. When he finally finds the end, it gets thrown haphazardly into the back-seat wherever, and he quickly pops the door open. The frigid air hits him like a truck, a thousand pound, fully frigid ice-block. Between the cold, and the migraine, and the lingering car freshener smell, and the rolling in his gut, he almost pukes.

Somehow, he finds it within him to keep his tenth cup of coffee from yesterday down.

Gavin practically stumbles out into the darkness, legs filled with lead, and heart thundering in his chest. Those red and blue lights continue to bloom all around him, and he raises his hand to block some of the piercing starbursts from his already haggard vision. His fingers graze against a fine cotton bandage, sitting right above his temple, and a little trail of crusted blood in a perimeter around it. The area is raised, and it fucking HURTS, and there goes that nausea again. But he can't seem to immediately find anything else wrong with him, a short burst of relief among the growing panic. He must have been out for--

He checks his phone, realizing he has no idea how long it's been, seeing if Nines had left him any messages.

The time reads 3:31am, December 9th.

So, about an hour or so.

Which in Gavin's paranoid brain means plenty of time for something horrific to have happened, considering that he doesn't find a text, or a call, or any indication to where Nines may have gone.

He picks up his pace while he trudges towards the light-show, scanning the faces he sees.

No luck so far.

He spies a few beat-cops he recognizes, but hasn't ever cared to learn the names of, and just asks them 'Nines, where?' They cross their arms, and point him off in the general direction of an ambulance in the distance with a scowl.

Fuck.

Oh, fuck.

Goddamn it.

He starts to sprint then, desperate, agonizing over every possible thing he might find inside. Nines, broken, bullet hole in his head just like he'd been terrified of before. Maybe ten of them in that stupid plastic chest.

Maybe there's almost nothing left.

And what if he accidentally put Nines in the crosshairs by jumping out like he did? What if he was in there, blue blood spewing right out of that stupid mechanical heart he'd just threatened to rip out of his chest because it was all Gavin's fault, and he's bleeding and he's dying an--

"DETECTIVE."

He knows that sound in an instant.

Nines voice cuts through the air, the noise, and the siren's thrumming around him with a sudden emphatic punch. Gavin shudders to a halt, head flailing wildly, aching to locate the source of the noise. It's dark, and the flashing prowlers are still blinding, so it takes a moment before he spies the silhouette in question. The android is standing off towards the water, next to what he thinks is Anderson and Connor, who must have shown up when their location turned out to be cold.

Gavin practically runs.

He basically sprints, needing reassurance. Needing indication that something isn't horribly wrong. Desperate to see if anything happened to Nines, needing to see with his own eyes that he's really okay before his brain will quit plaguing him with the vision of blue blood on the ground. Before he reaches the group, and right at the line between pavement and the shoreline, he trips. Almost completely eats shit when his converse catches on a rock in the dirt. He falters, and stumbles, about to eat the ground for the second time that evening due to another rash action.

An hand catches his arm just in time to throw him back up.

Nines is quick. That same, lightning fast that he was just a few hours before, and manages to catch him by the sleeve just before he completely loses balance.

He sighs, dragging Gavin vertical again, and when they look up and down towards each other, Gavin sees the frustration, and red at his brow. It makes the guilt in his chest furrow into something deeper. Wedge itself in.

He's not hurt. . .

But this is still his fault.

And Nines gives him his fifth sigh for the evening. The way Gavin interprets it, it sounds like 'you're going to kill me, for certain one day, if you keep this kind of thing up.'

But that's just the way he takes it.

Even though there's a layer of tension between them that could cut on a knifepoint, no matter the meaning. . . in all honesty? It's still the one of the most beautiful noises he's ever heard. He's just glad the tin-can is still around to make it. A playful little smile begins to form on Gavin's lips, a retort for the meaning beneath the noise, and Nines shakes his head, mouth tight, posture guarded.

"Please, for the love of everything, stop throwing yourself around, Detective."

' _Detective_.'

That's the second time in a minute.

So, they were back to that, then.

Gavin supposes he kind of deserves it, what with the dramatic not so much self-sacrifice and all.

Nines says the words coldly, glaring down at him with a disdainful frown that only spells trouble. It hurts. It stabs at his chest almost more than the migraine.

But who cares about how he feels?

Nines is okay.

He's okay, and that's all that matters.

And he. . .

Fuck it, he loves him. This stupid, intimidating, wonderful, misunderstood pile of plastic and bolts is someone who he loves.

The thought is terrifying, really. Gavin doesn’t let people in this far, because every time he does, they usually break his heart.

Or they do in his.

The sarcastic smirk he'd thrown up on his lips falters just a bit while the implication rocks through him.

This is real.

No amount of his tried and true 'Gavin Reed' style avoidance can possibly hide this fact from himself now. He thought he'd buried it deep enough, all those weeks ago. Told that little spark to shut its goddamn mouth, and just leave him be, and alone like he always is.

Like he always ends up, because he just fucks everything up, in the end.

And yet, as much as he's tried, as much as he's attempted to avoid the feeling, it's true. All those hours spent at that shitty little diner, telling the tin-can more about himself than basically anybody had known. . . getting the same honesty in return. . . his fate was sealed from the moment that Nines had sat down, and bothered to see the real Gavin underneath, in those cracked leather seats.

He was a fucking idiot for thinking anything otherwise.

If he had to pick a moment? When he realized what was happening, and tried to stop it anyway? There was one night.

After work, when he and Nines had been walking home, and dipped into a little whiskey lounge he'd seen in the corner of his eye. 'Serving androids AND people since June,' Gavin had said with a smirk, seeing the sign for inclusionary practices up in the window, and they'd gone inside. It was too cold for walking, and too late for the diner, and something told the both of them that they wanted to be anywhere but home. So they went in, and sat down at the bar, at the far end against the wall.

Somehow, he still doesn't know, he'd managed to convince Nines to try some of that fake, alcoholic thirium crap they keep advertising on TV, nursing a cocktail of his own. He never liked drinking alone; always felt fucking pathetic.

Well, more pathetic than he usually did.

Before he could agree, Gavin had it ordered, and when the bartender slid it across the shiny countertop, Nines had looked nonplussed at the small glass of glowing blue. He'd downed it so reluctantly, saying it was 'stupid, and false to even brand something like this as alcoholic when it was nothing more than a short burst of code to simulate the removal of inhibition,' and to 'not expect him to drink the whole thing,' but Gavin knew he'd started something devious when Nines immediately ordered a second round.

And a third.

When they'd gotten a few drinks in, and approaching a little wasted, things had begun to change while they sat there in the murky corner of the bar, together. The taught lines on Nines' face had loosened, just a bit. That hard-scrabble demeanor changed into something softer. That little brush their thighs did when they passed each other at their desks had somehow made its way here too, and Gavin could almost swear it felt like the tin-can was doing it on purpose.

Or. . . at least it was nice to hope it had been.

But that could have been the five Cuba Libres he'd had himself, talking.

Gavin wasn't about to act like any of the vague feelings in his chest were anything more than his own stupid, idiotic romanticism, and a little tinge of rum, because assuming anything otherwise was ridiculous.

So they just kept talking, and drinking, and ever so often they'd touch, and a delicious lick of fire would lap down into Gavin's veins.

When Nines had downed glass number five, something seemed to reboot in his brain. His demeanor changed almost immediately, and it sent him a bit far gone from tipsy. It was fucking comical, almost, how one moment he just seemed loose, and the next his speech was ever so slightly slurred, swaying slightly in his seat. Gavin remembers snorting wildly, already past the point of no return himself, knocking over his drink onto both of their laps while Nines blinked rapidly with the sensation.

"Hey, tin-can, download me some fuckin' coorbin. . . cormin. . . coorginat. . . fuck it, just buy me a brain off the internet when we get to work tomorrow, you and I both know I fuckin need one. Make it big. Got a lot of head to fill here. Size matters.”

He'd tapped his temple absentmindedly, halfway yelling indoors because he could no longer control his voice, shaking his fuzzy head at the spilled liquor languidly moving its way across the lacquered bar-top. Nines had just sputtered, laughing, sitting back against the wall behind him with slightly glazed eyes, watching Gavin drunkenly attempt to sop up the mess with way too many napkins bunched together.

Gavin didn't see it, but while he leaned, a little flicker of something with heavy gravity came over Nines. The android was still intoxicated, still loose, but it was like a real, honest thing had flickered to the surface, and surpassed Nines own barriers for what he would normally say. If he would have looked up, he would have seen the little bob of Nines throat, and the slight furrowing of his brows, and the slight little way his usually porcelain cheekbones gained a blue flush while he dared himself to say the sentence on his heavy tongue.

"No one else is like you, Gavin. You know that? I can walk around for a thousand years before I fall apart, and I'm not going to find anybody else like you. I like you. You're a keeper, Reed. I just want you to know that. And. . . you help me like myself, too. So you're allowed to stay. I give you permission."

Gavin initially had thought he'd imagined it, or that he'd wildly misinterpreted the words in his drunken haze. But he knew it was real when that thigh brushed up against him again, and the faintest little circle was drawn at the corner of his wrist, right at the bone.

He felt frozen, hot, cold, suddenly insane with the need to feel that slow rolling thumb even more.

Nines, however, didn't stop long enough for a retort, and immediately moved to smacking him playfully on the arm, before throwing the rest of drink number five down his throat with a coy little smile.

Gavin did look up, then. Straight ahead, and on. Watching that drink slide right down that blushing blue throat, so smooth and pristine under the neon signs. And Gavin had watched it, until the glass was empty, and just a little bit of thirium escaped from the side to glide down that radiant bit of skin.

He had to tear his eyes away, and escape to the bathroom as soon as possible, because. . .god. God fucking damn it, he can't get those words out of his mind.

_'No one else is like you.'_

_'I'm not going to find anybody else.'_

_'You help me like myself, too.'_

That should have been enough. Those sentiments, that acceptance.

The fact that Nines was saying what Gavin had wanted for years. He was his partner. 

A friend.

But between the rum, and the lights, and the fact that Nines voice rolled like lightning through him, right down to his cock, he'd wanted to just take him to the back, push him up against a wall, and lick the whole of that little blue trail, and then some.

Somehow, through some divine force and will, he managed not to.

That's the scene that's been ingrained in his mind, day in, day out, for two weeks. On every call. Every morning. Whenever Nines opens the door for him, like a perfectly programmed fucking gentleman, and Gavin notices more and more features on his face that make him feel like a teenage fucking schoolgirl. Every time they accidentally brush together when going back to their desks. Whenever those blue eyes meet his own.

He tried to write it off. He tried to feed himself a lie, that it didn't mean anything more.

But Gavin Reed was a fucking idiot, after all.

It wasn't just Gavin being horny, or wanting to get laid, or secretly being a big hopeless romantic who wished some tall drink of water would throw him against the wall and have his way. He didn't want to do those things to Nines because of a physical need, or alcohol, or any other excuse in between.

He wanted to do it, because it was Nines. Because he saw through that plastic veneer, and knew the man underneath. Because Nines had said he wanted to stay. Wanted him.

Because nobody else had wanted that, before.

So what else could he have done, that pathetic little romantic he is, but fall madly, and deeply in love?

That's why it hurt so much to see Nines staring at him this way.

That same face that had been blushing so brightly just a few weeks before is now canonically pissed, and tapping his foot on the dirt covered ground with an impatient 'well, I'm waiting for your apology regarding your stupidity this evening, and even then, I might not forgive you.'

So Gavin tries to ignore the welling emotion in his chest and defaults to the lie. The mask. The stupid fucking veneer. He laughs, and digs out a cigarette, rolling his eyes at the look, trying to hide the relief, and the heartache, and all the other emotions in between.

He makes up some crappy joke, about nearly dying, or how not even death itself has anything on 'Gavin fucking Reed,' but the punch-line doesn't seem to land. They're all just empty words, and Nines knows it.

He just looks at him, says nothing, and curtly turns away. While he walks, Gavin finally gets a response. He throws a single sentence over his shoulder, before stalking off towards the prowler beyond, leaving him behind.

"Shut the fuck up, Gavin. I really don't want to hear it."

And that was that.

Gavin stands there a few moments, stricken, confusion lining his brows along with a tinge of anger at the callousness Nines was throwing out towards him. He would have thought there would be. . . relief, at knowing he hadn't been too horribly harmed.

Apparently he had missed the transition between playful partner, and disappointed friend, somewhere along the way.

The dynamic duo, previously forgotten amid the spat, sidles awkwardly at his left. Hank shuffles from foot to foot with a little 'this ain't my fuckin' rodeo,' under his breath, obviously uncomfortable. Connor, however, notices Gavin's obvious distress, bless him and his little mecanical heart, and offers a small bit of context for the events of the past hour or so.

"He's just annoyed, Reed. Nines managed to apprehend one of Tupickow's associates, but it seems that amid the scuffle Gregorio was able to escape the premises. We also have an additional associate that arrived on scene with an inordinate amount of hard cash, so it's not all fruitless. Forensics can back track the serial numbers on the money to try and find where it came from. Paper money doesn't just show up like that anymore. It might lead to something good. . .It's not a complete failure."

Liar.

Yes, it was, Gavin thinks to himself as he watches Nines wrench the car door open in the distance, and throw himself inside.

That look he'd gotten?

His own idiotic move?

This whole night was a fucking joke. Connor just barrels on.

"If you're wondering why you woke up in the car, they cleared you medically. The EMT said there's a chance of a few complications, so they suggest staying awake as much as you can for the next twenty-four hours, and then taking an extended rest. Captain Fowler insists you take a long weekend."

He only halfway hears the words.

"Right."

Nothing else is registering, really, because the absolute, frigid glare that he's still receiving from across the way is the only thing he can think about.

While Connor finishes up, Gavin can see Nines start to grip the steering wheel, in an absolute vice. That little red ring flickers, almost to taunt Gavin from across the way, before Nines throws the prowler in reverse, and starts speeding off towards the station behind.

 _'You're allowed to stay, I give you permission_.'

Fuck.

Way to ruin it, Gav.

The three Detectives watch the thin amount of dust as it kicks up from the tires, spraying into the distance. None of them say a word, and then the feeling turns especially awkward when Hank eventually clears his throat.

"Oh yeah, he also seems a little pissed off, if you didn't notice. The fuck you do to him, Reed?"

"I uh--"

Gavin kicks his shoe a little bit, biting nervously away at the inner corner of his mouth with the unlit cigarette. He can't take his eyes off the empty space before him.

"--kind of jumped in front of a loaded gun because I thought one of us was about to die, and figured it might as well be my sorry ass."

He doesn't really know why he says it.

Hank almost chokes on the laugh that bubbles up from his throat behind him, and Connor summarily smacks him on the arm with a 'quit that,' before walking up to where Gavin stands, unmoving. His voice is obviously calculated when he speaks, trying to evoke a specific kind of assuaging tone.

"You do realize that if there was any immediate threat of danger, Nines would have eliminated the threat at hand?"

A.K.A; You're not indestructible, and he almost is, so why in the world would you do such a thing when even you should know better?

"Yeah, I kind of got that when he threw me on the ground instead of right in the path of becoming Swiss cheese." He gestures lightly to the bump at his temple, sighing himself, knowing that Connor's making way too much sense, especially since he should have thought of that before making such a stupid decision.

But hindsight is only useful when you try and count your mistakes. There wasn't any time to think in the moment, and he had to do SOMETHING. Anything. He wouldn't have been able to forgive himself if he'd have done nothing, and the outcome was Nines getting hurt.

He would have done anything make sure that Nines was okay.

But Gavin isn't about to tell Connor, or fucking Anderson of all people, his deepest, darkest secret, so he just gives a little huff, and a 'hey, I probably only have two brain cells to rub together anyway, so what else do you expect,' and it concludes the conversation.

Surprisingly, Connor offers a ride back to the station, and Hank does a little protesting noise before a pointed glare form his partner shuts him down. So they pile in the rusted, decrepit, complete piece of shit that can barely be called Hank's method of transportation, and off they go. When they get into the street, Hank speaks again.

"Why the hell don't you just get your own car, Reed?"

Hank throws the question into the rear-view mirror at Gavin as he slumps down low amid the cracked leather, slightly sulking, still with a pounding head.

"Didn't ever need one. Walking to the Station's good cardio. You should try that sometime you old geezer."

"Well that seems like a load of shit considering you practically need a booster seat back there, kiddo."

"HEY--"

Connor interjects.

"What the Lieutenant is _trying_ to say, Detective, is that you and Nines have been working together for nearly six months, and it would be better if the department wasn't constantly down one cruiser when you needed to depart to a distanced location."

They didn't know about their little walks in the morning, or the diner, so how could they really understand. They were making perfect sense otherwise, really.

But they didn't know.

"Yeah, well, that's great and all, but it kind of seems like I won't be going anywhere any time soon with him seeing as he fucking hates my guts right now."

It's Connor's turn to offer a slight sigh, and he turns a bit from the passenger seat to address Gavin directly.

"You think that Nines despises you right now, Detective?"

Maybe not despise, but loathes his guts and stupid actions with his entire being? Possibly.

"I thought that seemed pretty fuckin' clear."

Connor rolls his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, no doubt a move learned from Anderson.

"I ask myself more and more all the time why they awarded you the title of Detective."

" _'Scuse_ me?"

"What I mean to say--"

Connor narrows his eyes, and glowers down towards Gavin's shrunken posture.

"--Is that if you can't figure out precisely why Nines may be a shade distraught at the thought of you attempting bodily sacrifice for his sake, you're either in the wrong profession--"

"HEY! Look you piece of--"

"--Or you're much more of a fool than I originally assumed you to be."

Gavin's mouth audibly snaps shut at the remark. Connor quickly turns away, eyes forward on the road. He wants to say something sharp, and witty, and perhaps with a few 'fuck yous' thrown in between, but as they drive off towards the DPD, for once in his life, Gavin Reed can't think of anything to say at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSLATION:
> 
> premier et dernier et pour toujours
> 
> First, and last, and forever.


	9. Pourquoi Je T'aime Autant?

_"Do you have any idea how much it hurts?"_

_"How much what hurts, tin-can?"_

_"Loving you. Feeling you. The sight of you. Your smell. You're so much, Gavin Reed. I'm drunk on you, and I'll never get enough."_

* * *

_February 15th, 2040 // [2 months later]_

The first time Gavin shows up at la Fenêtre Safran again, he comes with a bouquet of flowers. A regular old arrangement, shoved right in Nines face, just when he's is about to close shop.

Peonies, lilies, a few roses in between. Queen Anne's lace, and Geraniums too. All cobbled together, tied up with a big red bow, and half of them broken or wilting.

There's a tag on the side in terrible handwriting that reads 'I'm such a fucking idiot, please don't hate my guts.'

It's too late for that.

They look half-dead, and _sad_.

Kind of like Gavin.

Nines can tell he's lost weight.

"They got a little crushed on the way over. I uh. . . sort of halfway fell into the sewer. It's the leg and everything. Can't keep my fuckin' balance to save my life anymore, and some road-work clown didn't put the manhole cover back on. And before you say ANYTHING, I'm SORRY, and--"

Of course. The _fucking_ leg.

And another excuse.

Typical Gavin Reed.

"I don't want to hear it."

Nines slams the front door in his face, and when Gavin tries to pull it back open, it's locked up tight. He begs Nines to let him in, pounding at the wood, getting splinters in his fists, but there's no more sound inside.

Eventually he gives up, and hobbles away on that horrific fucking leg of his, the full three miles to home.

Gavin throws the flowers in the trash the first chance he gets.

//

The second time Gavin shows back up, he's hiding, face hidden under a hoodie.

Sunglasses, sneaking, the whole 'celebrity undercover' shebang.

He comes in middle of the day during the mid-morning rush where all of Detroit seems determined to line up at the door. He stands there like he's in some great clandestine armor, totally unseen and unidentified, but Nines spots him almost immediately.

Nines almost snaps a stainless steel tray in half at the mere sight of him, standing in the doorway. His thirium pump starts beating at a dangerous pace. He sees red, and his temple flashes a dangerous crimson. Nines immediately stops the transaction he's in the middle of, ordering everyone out of the store. The customer is some poor child that's been waiting all morning, and his angry father, but Nines doesn't hesitate. He doesn't think he can handle hearing Gavin's voice again, and he was so close to getting inside, which is DEFCON 10 on the 'avoid Gavin Reed at all costs' scale. When the kid cries all the way out, and Nines slams the door to the public, he almost feels sorry.

But not sorry enough to risk the chance of another stupid, vapid word to come out of Gavin's mouth.

Not sorry enough to wade through a sea of platitudes, that'll be thrown to the wayside, for something as stupid as a Reed-self-sacrifice.

The boy's father leaves a bad review online, saying Nines was rude.

He was.

He doesn't care.

//

The third time Gavin shows back up in the earliest hours of the morning, Nines already has his key in the lock, ready to start prep for the day.

It's 5:45am.

When Gavin hobbles over to him, out of breath, sweat beading on his brow, Nines sees the layers upon layers of bags under his eyes, and something stabs just a bit in his chest.

He wonders how long it's been since Gavin's had a good night's sleep.

Then he remembers he doesn't care.

"Nines, please, fucking stop, and just TALK--"

"Fuck off, Gavin."

He manages to push him aside not so gently, and escapes indoors.

The door gets slammed, again, third time in a week.

Gavin bangs on the glass at the window outside for a whole hour, begging to be let in. When 6:50am rolls around, someone from a business across the street calls the cops, thinking it's a break in.

Tina gets the call.

When she shows up, she shakes her head, and explains to the Samaritan caller that it's handled. Gavin finally gets pried from the stoop, and she bribes him with a tall coffee in order to convince him to finally get some decent rest.

"Fowler wants you to stay home for two days, no arguments, no fucking backtalk. Orders, Gavin. Seriously dude, when was the last time you slept for more than three hours?"

He sips on his coffee, and looks out the window, and pretends that it doesn't taste like ashes on his tongue.

"Shut up, Tina. Just. . . stop talking. _Please_."

When they get into the car, Nines barely moves until he hears them drive away.

When the sound disappears, he sinks to the floor. Nothing gets done for the day. He simply sits there, and breaks down, and holds himself, and cries. Gargantuan sobs, that nobody hears, except for himself.

It goes on for hours.

The people of Detroit line up outside of the door, just like they always do.

But it doesn't open that day.

It takes the fifty people lined up outside longer than it should to realize nobody's home.

//

After the run in with Tina, it takes Gavin another four days to find the courage to start the dance back up again.

Nines had started to think that maybe, just maybe, he was in the clear, and the constant worry of seeing Gavin's face in that red tinted window was starting to dissipate.

But he shows up late that evening, and Nines is barely started on cleanup for the Friday night raffle; Coq au' Vin, Creme Brûlée, fresh asparagus with lemon and garlic, prepared delicately with an exquisite Riesling for a lovely older gentleman and his husband.

When Nines hears the gentle knock at the door, he thinks it's just the newlyweds he'd served at first, considering they did forget one of their boxes at the counter. He throws his bar-towel over his shoulder, and licks a lonely stripe of sauce from his thumb while he goes to answer the pattering at the door.

"I apologize for not running after you earlier, I didn't notice you left this behind until--"

Gavin's half-smile radiates inside from the moonlit eve.

"Hey, tin-can."

Nines moves as fast as he can to swing the door closed, and throw the lock.

Gavin manages to get his hand between the door, and the door-frame, before it swings fully closed, but just a fraction too late. Nines hadn't held back his strength, and when the thing makes contact, he can hear a little _crunch_ of bones when it slams onto Gavin's wrist.

" _FUCK_! MOTHER _FUCKER_!"

Gavin starts to dance around the street, holding his hand high, sucking in air.

The sound of that snap pools, and pools, and reverberates in Nines' head.

It makes him feel wrong.

He thinks he would be sick, if he even could be.

He stumbles back, and fists his hair, and cries out where he stands. Gavin won't stop. Gavin just won't STOP, and because Gavin just won't stop, Nines has hurt him, and--

"Gavin, PLEASE. Please just stop coming. It's not. . . there's not. . ."

Gavin sucks in another breath, and shakes out his wrist some more, pushing inside, the farthest he's gotten in the better part of a month.

It feels like an intrusion, when his Converse hit the filigreed tile; it feels wrong.

A violation, of this sacred place Nines has made, away from that job, away from the heartache.

Away from Gavin.

He wants him out.

He doesn't belong here, anymore.

_(He can't belong here, anymore.)_

"I can't. . . I can't. . ."

Nines doesn't quite get the words out. They're stuck in his throat, just like the million other things he wants to scream at him.

 _'Why did you take point that night?! Didn't I tell you to fall back_?!'

 _'Why do you refuse to take care of yourself, Gavin. Why is it so hard for you to ask for help. Why is it always you that needs to suffer? Can't someone else take that load for you sometimes?_ '

And the one that pushed him over the edge, all those weeks ago.

 _'Why did you ever think that for one single moment, that I could live without you if you'd died?_ '

But Nines says none of those things.

He stumbles back, four paces from the door, and tries to forget that he even thought of them again, glass cabinet to his back. His legs are failing, falling, and a red-tinted warning flashes in his eyes.

He can't breathe.

He doesn't need to, but he can't. For some reason, it feels like it would help. He doesn't know what else to do, except sink to the floor, and sip air like his very life depends on it, because he doesn't know what to do with Gavin Reed right in front of him. He buries his head in his hands, and just wishes he would go away.

Gavin steps forward, softly, having no idea what to do himself when Nines just slides despondently to the floor.

"Nines. . . Nines, I. . ."

"It's too much Gavin. Seeing you."

The words come out fainter than a whisper.

"Please, I just. . . If you'd just let me explain, I can--"

"You can't. You just can't, Gavin. There's nothing else you can say that will make it okay. Make us okay. You just can't."

So small, so desperate. Nines feels like he might scream. Somehow, he doesn't have to.

Gavin doesn't say anymore.

He turns to go, and walks slowly out of the cafe, wherever his legs manage to take him. He finds a bar open, and slides into a seat, and orders a shot.

And another.

And another, after that.

And another, still.

He gets so drunk that he doesn't remember stumbling home, puking on his sweatshirt. passing out on the bed. When he wakes up, he feels worse than death. His arm throbs in the mid-morning light, and he calls a cab to take him to the doctor. When they get the x-ray, it turns out it's only a bruise.

The doctor tells him he's lucky.

He says it hurts like a bitch.

The doctor retorts by asking him if he's eating enough lately.

Gavin's lost twelve pound in the past two weeks. He doesn't respond.

He just walks out of the clinic, and holds his wrist close to his chest, all the way home. He almost trips and sprains his ankle somewhere between 1st Avenue and 4th, because of the leg, and his stupidity.

He starts to think he really should get a car.

//

Gavin doesn't stay away.

Nines decides to stop counting the number of times he's begged him to stop.

It becomes harder, and easier at the same time, every night he shows.

By the end of the month Gavin starts to come only once a week. Between 10:00 and 11:00pm, the end of second shift. He just seems too tired otherwise, because he still has a job to do, after all, and he can't let himself get fired from the one occupation that can accommodate his level of unceasing bullshit.

One of the nights, when things seem to get to be too much again, when his heart aches like nothing else he's ever quite felt before, and he gets that longing for Gavin in his arms, Nines makes himself a promise.

He makes himself think about the evening he'd spent on the floor, heartbroken, wailing again, hearing the soft little crunch of Gavin's bones between his door. He thinks about all the tears, and heartache, and how he still doesn't know how he can get through anything without seeing Gavin's coy little smile, and how that fact makes him feel half-alive. He talks to Connor again, and they make another promise to each other, for Nines' sake.

No more tears.

No more suffering.

No more broken anything, for either one of them, because it's probably hurting Gavin just as much as it is him. So they come up with a plan:

He'd lock the door, and keep it closed, adamantly this time. Nines would keep Gavin away, if it was the last thing he did.

For both their sakes.

So he does just that.

//

It works for a week.

It's a Wednesday evening when it doesn't. For some reason, at the back of Nines' mind, things had felt wrong all day.

The customers were rude all morning. A whole tray of croissants and cranberry muffins were burned and smoking around 3:00. A city health inspector had shown up with a disdainful little frown, flashing a stupid little badge, announcing that he'd be by for a surprise inspection, 'sooner than Nines should expect.'

Not that Nines had anything to hide, in that little cafe on the corner of his, but it was a cursed interaction all the same. He could tell by the disgust in the man's eyes that he was one of THOSE people; the kind that thought androids were lesser. The kind that thought they didn't belong.

The kind of person that thought he wasn't really alive.

When the man turned and walked away, Nines wondered if Gavin ever looked at him like that, before. Before the diner. Before New Years. Before they were. . .

Just. . . _before_.

It nearly rips his heart in two. He doesn't make a conclusion.

It scares him too much.

He wishes it wouldn't, anymore. Nines really, truly, does.

Something tells him that it'll kill him one day.

When Gavin finally shows, he has no idea it's him at first.

Nines has the final tray in the steam washer when he hears a rattling noise coming from the front door. His LED immediately flashes red, bathed in the light from the street that shines equally as crimson, and he thinks someone's breaking and entering. He grabs the Beretta APX he keeps tucked under the counter, just for days like this, a parting gift from his old life at the DPD.

Nines creeps around the corner, stalking past beignets, and crepes, and all the other treats for the day, tucked away in the boulangerie cabinet. They sit there in their neat little rows, watching the show, as the rattling grows louder, and Nines readies the gun to his eyes. No more playing around.

He's tired. Fucking sick, and tired, of every asshole in Detroit coming into his store, and haunting him.

No more.

He's _done_.

The latch suddenly swings to open, and the door begins to open with a creak, and shudder.

Nines already has the safety off before it swings wide.

Suddenly, the intruder stumbles over the entrance, on the fourth tile from the right. The one Nines knows sticks out at the most awkward angle. The burglar tumbles to the floor below, with a little yelp and shout, right as a bullet flies out of the Beretta's chamber, and embeds itself in the heavy wood panels behind. The interloper shrieks while the gun smoke curls into the cafe air.

"FUCK ME! NINES?? IT'S GAVIN, JESUS CHRIST!"

Gavin flails on the floor, trying to shove himself up, and tries to find the doorhandles, so he can haul his ass off of the floor and question Nines as to why he was almost killed.

Nines thirium pump flutters wildly as he slowly realizes he was millimeters off from punching a well-placed hole through Gavin's skull.

The thought at what could have been fills him up, and up, and up, until he's overflowing with red.

Last week, he would have been on the floor, a sobbing mess, at the sight.

But tonight?

Tonight he's _angry._

Tonight, Nines feels _insane_.

_Outraged. Betrayed. Intruded. Compromised. Lied to. Fucked up._

He wants to run his plastic fist into Gavin's pretty little face, for making this happen in the first place.

Gavin starts to stand, and his voice is shaky.

"Okay, maybe breaking in wasn't the best plan in the universe, I'll admit. But really Nines, you've got to start LISTENING to me, because I know we can work this out and--"

No, he doesn't.

So he punches him after all.

The fist flies through the air, and makes contact with Gavin's shocked face. It pummels through sinew, and bone, and cheek. There isn't a 'crunch' like before, because Nines chooses a spot precisely so he never has to hear the sound again.

He chooses a similar position for the second blow.

And the third.

And the fourth.

By the time he readies the fifth, Gavin's realized Nines isn't here to play, and starts to fight back on his own. He shoves all of his weight into Nines' core, shoving as hard as he can, and they fly backwards into the store. He hits the boulangerie case hard, and a lonely little crack makes its way up and over the curved hood.

"NINES, FUCKING STOP, WILL YOU?!"

No.

He won't.

Not today.

Because Gavin doesn't listen. Gavin doesn't understand a simple 'no.' Doesn't parse plain English, when it's spelled out to him, just like he didn't all those months ago.

So no more talking. Gavin only listens to physics, it seems. Action, and reaction. Reality isn't real until it pierces into him, from the barrel of a gun, or the end of a fist, and Nines can't help but watch.

So he uses that language of pain to do all the talking.

_'How stupid can you be, Gavin Reed.'_

Punch.

_'You're selfish, and an idiot, and you drive me insane.'_

He brings his knee to his ribs, just below the solar plexus.

_'I fucking hate you.'_

Gavin manages to get a grip on his torso again, and they go crashing to the ground, together. He ends up on top, and Nines pinned underneath him, beneath that strength that hides beneath Gavin's unassuming mask. They heave in breaths together, while his arms hold him down, and they breathe in the dark. The one thing Nines wants to say, more than anything, still can't pass his lips.

_'I fucking hate you, for making me feel this way.'_

Nines tries to get up again, but Gavin holds firm. A minute passes. Another thought, so fleeting.

_'I hate you for making me let you go.'_

Their breathing slows, tandem, until Nines doesn't feel like faking it, anymore. He stills, and there's silence. Between the pause, something hot and wet splashes down on his arm.

"You're bleeding."

Gavin narrows his eyes, almost like he's offended that it's the first thing to come out of Nines' mouth.

"Yeah, well, whose fuckin' fault is that, huh?"

"Yours."

Gavin scoffs, and digs his hands into Nines' shoulder blades.

"I'm not the one that tried to shoot someone, here."

Nines snarls in the dark, towards the red shining window, and the accusation, and the weight of Gavin on top of him, wrong in every way. Wrong in all the wrong ways. Right in none of them. Something within him wishes Gavin were on him at his apartment, on top of soft cotton sheets, with Gavin's sweat, and his heat, and the smell of jasmine and cedar in the air above him.

Instead, they're here. Cold tile floor. Blood on his jaw. Chasm between even when they're touching.

It's _wrong_.

They're _wrong_ , here.

And they'll never be right, again. Nines chooses something to end the charade, no matter how much it stings.

"No. . . but you're the one who seems determined to keep getting shot, now aren't you?"

The cruelty, and the bite does its work. Gavin lifts from him, and stumbles in the black. Nines slides a bit on the tiles still wet with Gavin's droplets of blood while he rises to stand, and leans against the countertop, shaking. They say nothing. They are nothing.

There is nothing here, now.

There's nothing more to do, or say, between two people who are nothing.

So Nines stalks to the back. He gets his coat, and his keys, and he doesn't look back. He stalks out the front, past Gavin hunched over, on his red counter seat, spitting blood on the floor. Nines doesn't even bother to close the door behind him, and lets it fall where it may as he stalks into the night, and goes home, leaving a broken, crippled man behind.

He falls to his knees once he steps inside his apartment, and forces a shutdown in his bloodstained clothes.

//

When he gets back to the store the next morning, Gavin is still inside.

He's passed out on the floor, in a crumpled little heap, softly snoring in the faint morning light. He's listing to one side, and the door's still cracked where Nines had left eight hours ago.

Nines thinks he can see tear marks. Between the blood, and the swelling black eye, and the fine little scrapes on the side of Gavin's mouth.

He'd slept here. Alone.

It hurts him.

It shouldn't.

Nines just sighs.

It was cold, last night, and the thought leaves him uncomfortable. He can see Gavin shivering in the draft coming in from the open doorway. A little thing that could maybe be regret flutters somewhere in Nines' chest.

So Nines takes his coat off, carefully, and sets it over Gavin, and his stupid crooked nose, and the blood that's dried all over his clothes.

He ends up calling Tina. She's the only one he won't have to explain things to, he thinks, and he's right. She picks up immediately, and promises to be there as soon as she can, not asking any questions except 'it's Gavin, right?' Nines goes in the back while he waits for her to arrive, and begins for the day, just to give his hands something to do. Gavin doesn't move a single time, out like a light.

She shows up finally, between baking the baguettes, and starting some jam. They simply nod as she walks inside, and she sees Gavin sleeping on the floor. Nines stays around the corner, out of sight while she rouses him. He ends up deciding that Tina Chen is a good friend, and that he's glad that someone else will answer a call to pick up the broken pieces of Gavin Reed off of a floor.

It can't just be him, anymore.

"Hey, bud. Up and at em,' come on now."

Tina gently rocks Gavin back and forth until his swollen eyes flutter open.

"What. . . The fuck? Tina? Where did you--"

"No questions, Gav. Only moving, today. Only moving."

She leads him outside, and he doesn't complain a single time. They get in the prowler, and yet again, they drive away. Nines stays frozen where he stands, eyes screwed shut, red at his temple, water boiling, insides burning while they leave.

He doesn't move a muscle until the car rounds the block.

It takes him the whole day to finally forget the morning.

But when he gets ready to leave that evening, he realizes Gavin still has his coat. So he walks home in the cold, temperature dipping just a bit below comfortable for his internal heating, and takes a warm shower the moment he gets back inside.

First thing in the morning, he stops somewhere open, and buys a new one. It's brown, and it's hideous, and he doesn't like it nearly as much as the old.

But when Nines gets to the door, he stops in his tracks. There's a black and white peacoat, with checkered grey insides, hanging from the doorknob, outside the store. He approaches so carefully, almost like he'll combust.

Nines grabs it delicately, so delicately in his hands, and wonders something. He leans his head down, and breathes in.

Jasmine. Cedar. Blood.

It's _him._

As he pulls his head away, drunk on the heady perfume, he happens to see the bullet lodged in the door.

Nines heart aches, and stops where it beats. The world starts to tilt on its axis. The sight makes him feel corrupted on the inside. He feels like he could maybe fall down again. But he manages to pluck the round from the wood, and drop it in his front pocket; a reminder.

Only the jasmine, and the cedar, and the reminder of everything that's gone, everything that needs to stay buried, because it's better that way, grounds him again.

Nines allows himself to wear the coat the entire day.

He lets himself pretend, just for a little while, that he has any right to this feeling of anything Gavin wrapped up around him, anymore.

Because he doesn't.

The ugly brown coat he bought that morning get's set somewhere in the back, behind a stack of palettes, somwhere forgotten, who really knows.

Nines never touches the thing, worn only once, ever again.

//

Gavin comes.

Gavin goes.

He stops locking the door, because it turns out Gavin's particularly great at lock picking, and he's tired of being snuck up on in the middle of the night.

He doesn't want another bullet in the door.

Or anything else, for that matter.

Sometimes they talk, now.

Gavin'll come by looking tired, and ragged, exhausted between work, and life, and 'them,' and Nines can tell that he's lost another pound or three. Whenever he notices, it sets something deep and bothersome within. So he starts to let him sit there, and talk away, without too much fuss while he cleans, offering an extra scone or two if there's any left over, because as much as he doesn't want to admit it, he misses the way that words sound out on Gavin's lips, and he really can't afford to lose much more weight.

Gavin starts to perk up the more and more he's allowed to say; the more concessions that Nines makes to let him back in. He doesn't tell anyone, but it relieves him to know he's not doing too poorly.

Sometimes Nines will even say something back, if he's in the right mood, and the ache in his chest doesn't swallow him whole. Entire conversations, every now and then, like nothing has changed.

It's nice. As much as Nines doesn't want it to be. It feels good.

Somewhere along the way, Gavin's got back into the habit of telling Nines he loves him again.

You'd think that it would upset him, but it almost does the opposite. It sets him on fire at the mere evocation of the syllables. It consumes him with an incandescent desire, and thrumming in his chassis, and a sickly sweet urge to take his lips between his hands and whisper promises of his own.

But he doesn't.

Nines never says 'I love you,' in return. Nothing even close.

Because he can't.

He just _can't_.

So Gavin keeps thinking of ridiculous gestures to try and show him how much he's serious, and means it. He tries flowers first, again. Apparently, as he explains, 'he's always wanted to buy some beautiful boy that he loves flowers, and Nines is the prettiest thing he's ever seen.'

When he hands them to him, it sets him red, from head, to temple, to toe. Gavin blushes too, when the bouquet slips from his hands, and Nines thinks that he almost moves to kiss him. But Nines manages to get him back out of the door, and on his merry way, before they can take too many steps back together again. Before his will comes crashing down, and they collide together again, fumbling for skin, and hands, and purchase, in the light of the red bleeding window, in the dark.

So Nines simply sets them in a crystal glass vase, and somehow manages to keep from playing the wanton daydream over and over in his head, keeping those feelings within him instead. Everyone asks him who bought such a wonderful arrangement all the next day.

"Must have been someone pretty special, yeah? They're gorgeous. Who's the lucky android in your life? Or person, maybe, I'm not gonna judge."

He doesn't know how to refer to Gavin anymore when each of them ask.

_'My lover?'_

He almost kicks himself for putting the thought back into his mind, still anguishing over the urge from before.

_'My friend?'_

Not too good either. Friends don't almost shoot friends in the head. Friends don't punch friends until they're black and blue at the mouth. Friends don't refuse to look each other in the eye half the time, because it's a coin toss if they feel too angry or sad to do so.

_'My Ex?'_

He's not some high-school juvenile in a teen romance novel, so that option flies out the window as well.

How does one describe Gavin Reed?

He decides that you can't.

You really just can't, so he doesn't, and simply gives them the name, because it says everything and nothing all the same.

"Gavin. They're from Gavin."

The customers nod like they know who that is, what it means, even though they don't have the faintest idea. When Nines rings them up, and time after time they inquire, he's shocked at how easy it is to say the name out loud, again. It had been so very difficult just weeks before.

It's half of a blessing, and some of a curse.

//

For one grandiose gesture, Gavin shows up, in a particularly good mood, claiming he's bought two thousand dollars worth of pots and pans. Top of the line, all stainless steel. Brand name, and shiny, and exactly the kind of thing that Nines salivates over using in the restaurant one day. There's no explanation for why Gavin knows of them in the first place except if he'd overheard Hank and Connor chatting at the DPD, relayed from Nines in turn.

Nines questions his motivations of course, and inevitably chastises him for the waste of money on someone who couldn't even get water to boil if they tried. But really, he's touched. He feels uncomfortable, and numb, and melancholy, and sparking on the inside, because a sneaking suspicion tells him they were purchased just for him. Gavin leaves with a wink, and tells Nines he knows where to find him (find them), and when he turns on his heel, Nines feels ready to burst.

When he walks home alone after the evening, latent Spring chill nipping at his heels, he feels halfway close to crying, and halfway touched in every way. He calculates the percentage chance that Gavin had bought them just as an excuse to get him to finally come back to his apartment, and use them.

He ends up deducing the aforementioned chance is 100%.

The readout makes him laugh. A bitter, elated, flattered little thing, in the still frigid April cold, as he walks to his place alone.

_'Typical Gavin.'_

He punches the button on the elevator to his floor, and digs his face in further to the fleeting scent of Jasmine and Cedar in the lining of his cowl.

_'Typical idiot.'_

He thinks of how nobody else would ever go to such ridiculous lengths to demonstrate their admiration for him.

_'Typical fool.'_

He digs a ring full of keys from his pocket, and as he sorts through them one by one, he's gutted in tandem by a flurry of thoughts.

_(His fool.)_

_(His idiot.)_

_(His Gavin.)_

_'Mon cherie.'_

The thought stops him dead in his tracks, right outside of his apartment door. His keys fall out of his hand, and hit the carpet in the hallway outside.

Nines starts to tremble. The syllables rock through him.

When he finally gets in, hands shaking violently, he immediately calls Connor, because he doesn't know what else to do. Doesn't know what else to think, except. . .

"I. . ."

"I still. . ."

He's so very close, to admitting something dangerous.

Nines' breath is shaky when his brother answers, and Connor immediately asks what's wrong because he can hear the tremors in his voice modulation.

"Is it Gavin, again?"

Nines has to lick his lips to get the sentence out.

"Yes. Yes, it's Gavin again."

So quiet. So delicate, while Nines stands alone in his kitchen, and clutches the counter, and sprays a shot of bleeding-heart red into the black of the room.

Connor grunts angrily on the other side, and Nines suspects that wherever he is, the wall has turned equally as crimson.

"What in the HELL is his--. . . hang on a second. . . Yeah, I'm okay Hank. . . No, nobody died, it's not like that. . . I'm going outside for a little while, all right?. . . Yes, pause the movie. . . Yes, I know we've seen it thirty times, I still like this part. . . No, don't. . . Really? It's 12:30 in the morning Hank, I don't know if. . .Yes, okay, I'll get you popcorn when I come back. . . Yes. . . Fine, fine--"

Nines can hear a little huff of breath, and a sliding glass door open and close, while Connor steps outside of what must be Anderson's dump of a house. The sound of their happy little bickering makes him perk up just a bit, and come out of the jumbled mess of feelings rolling through him. Mostly because Nines is aware of how blindly in love Connor is with the man, and it's not so much an argument as a thinly veiled squabble of an old married couple, which is practically comical.

The fact that they DO act like a couple is apparently obvious to everyone BUT the aforementioned couple themselves, and Nines just sighs, as he usually does. He's not about to get into that whole topic with his brother over the phone, especially not when he's having a crisis all on his own. But the whole scene makes him smile, just a bit, into the darkness surrounding him.

It reminds him of before.

"--Hey, I'm back. I'm sorry about that, we were just--"

"Watching a movie? Let me guess. . .The Two Towers for no doubt the fiftieth time, perhaps?"

Connor huffs a bit, and Nines thinks he can hear the St. Bernard shaking his collar around in the background.

"How did you know?"

"Just a lucky guess, I suppose."

"Am I really becoming that predictable?"

Nines smiles in the dark, and for a faint moment, there's yellow on the wall again.

"Absolutely, Con."

They share a short laugh, which peals off into the breeze, and the mood slowly sours again.

"So. . . Reed again, huh?"

Connor doesn't waste any time, and gets right into things. Nines swallows hard, and asks himself again. . .

Is he serious, right now? This call? Does he know what he wants to say?

Is he going to say it?

The words almost don't come out. But they do. They do.

". . . Connor, can I tell you something?"

He knows it, then. Knows for certain that this needs to happen. Needs to admit this, for someone to witness. Connor has no idea what's in store.

He isn't going to like it.

But it's not his decision to make. He'll hate Nines just a little bit for it, but he still wants him to be the first to know, because he deserves that courtesy as family. Connor sounds serious on the other end, when he finally answers.

"Anything. You're my brother. Whatever you need."

Connor sounds so genuine, and so caring, and so absolutely concerned, that Nines feels he could weep. His throat feels thicker still, as they come to the climax of what needs to be done.

"Yeah, whatever I need, huh? Well, what if I told you that what I need is. . . That I need to say that--"

Connor immediately catches the implication of the words, the lingering truth beneath, and his tone turns hostile.

"Nines, don't tell me--"

"--He came by the shop, tonight. It was almost like before, Connor. Like nothing had ever been wrong. He did his piece like he always does, and then he told me he spent all this money on something. Those All-Clad pans I mentioned to you last week, you know? How many paychecks did he save up for that, Con? I guess he heard you talking to Anderson, and he just. . . bought them, apparently. Told me they were at his place, and they were there along with him, and I could come by any time. And then on the way home, I. . .I thought about him. Thought about us. Called him 'mine' in my mind, and it just sounded so right, that I--"

"-- _Please_ don't tell me you're at his apartment right now and you're--"

Nines makes a frustrated noise, because he's just got to get everything out of him before he decides not to again.

"--I'm not, Con, I just. . . I just. . ."

Connor sighs quiet into the swirling night air. There's a pregnant pause, while both brothers dare each other to go further. Connor speaks first, and his voice comes out strained when he finally talks again.

"Tell me anything but what I think you're about to say, Nines."

. . .

"I still love him."

It drops like a bomb. Silence in the air, while the bay doors open, and the atomic thing flies. It drops with aplomb, and it scorches the room, and the silence, and the android named Nines, every part of him whole. It spreads, and blooms, and blossoms a firestorm, and it radiates halfway across the city, absolutely scorching, mushroom cloud of implications, singing his brother for completely different reasons.

That's it, then.

He's done it.

There's no going back. No putting the admission back where Nines had packed it so neatly away back in January, again.

Nines had gone and broken himself back open. Cracked, clean. No going back.

There was nowhere to go but forward.

Apparently, Connor didn't quite think so.

"He lied to you, Nines."

The voice comes out grating, and graveled. Full of hate for the man that's hurt Nines so, and sadness, for a brother who loves a human so immensely much, just like he does. Melancholy, and loathing, that his brother shares heartache, like him.

"He promised you he wouldn't put himself in harm's way again, remember? You remember that he BROKE that promise? 'I made him swear that he would never try to take a bullet for me again.' That's what you told me. You said that even though you were worried, you thought you could protect him. That he'd protect himself, because you'd TALKED, and you had an understanding. 'I've got to have faith in him Connor, he's my partner after all. And I want to be something more.' Those were your words, and his promise. And what does he do? Three weeks after almost getting his skull cracked open by a hollow point?"

He knows.

"He gets himself _shot_. He completely ignores the fact that you're nearly indestructible, and that he'd made you that promise, and chases after a perp all by himself so you're not in the way. He takes the point, and he gets SHOT, Nines. Anterior to posterior gastrocnemius, if I recall the report correctly. Do you remember that they stabbed him right after, huh? The bastards turned back around, and STABBED him, just for fun. Before you caught back up and chased them down. Do you remember that one of the blades knicked his femoral? Do you remember how much blood was on the floor?"

He can feel it on his hands.

"Do you remember how many fucking red-lights you ran, trying to get him to the hospital? Do you remember you accidentally ran some woman off the road, and she broke her femur in two when she crashed into a pylon?"

He does.

"Do you remember you promised yourself, promised ME, that you would STOP with Gavin, because you almost fell apart when they had him in surgery? When they said they'd do the best they could to 'save the leg?' When you saw how grey his face was when he came out of the operating room? Do you remember how you felt like you would die if he did, and that you told me you didn't know how long you were going to make it with that fear in you? Do you remember how we agreed that it was best for you to leave, if it scared you so much? Do you remember that, Nines?"

He can bring up the memory of their conversation like it was yesterday.

"Well, _do_ you? I want to _hear_ it."

"I. . . I remember, Connor."

There's a sigh on the other line, and Nines screws his eyes shut.

"So why. . . _why_ are you doing this to yourself again? What possible, rational thing could you use to justify what I know you're really telling me? You called me to say you're going to try again, aren't you. . .?"

He is.

Connor sounds like he could scream.

"Why are you letting him back in? I don't. . . I don't get it, Nines. I don't understand."

The line crackles while Nines splits himself apart, and together. Apart, and together. Trying to think of something. Anything. Trying to get his synthetic synapses to fire, and come up with a rational way to explain what he feels. The blazing remnants of what used to be within him. In his chest, and his arms, and on his lips, and the ghost of the feeling of Gavin around him.

He can only think of one possible thing to say.

"It's because I love him, Connor. _I love him_. That should tell you all you need to know. I don't have words, I don't have feelings, or platitudes, I have. . . I have. . ."

Nines thinks of something, then. A bit cruel. A bit much. A little too deviant, for someone who he cares for, but it's the best he can think of.

"Besides. . . wouldn't you do anything? Wouldn't you do whatever you could, if you had a chance with Hank? No matter the cost? No matter how much it hurt? Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you take it?"

Silence, on the other end.

Silence, and nothing more.

Not a sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSLATION: Pourquoi je t'aime autant?
> 
> Why do I love you so?


	10. Des fleurs, du café, des mots et l'obscurité.

_March 07th, 2040 // [3 Weeks Later]_

* * *

It takes Nines three more weeks to muster the courage to finally act on what he thinks he--

No.

What he absolutely, without uncertainty, at the core of his being _knows_ about Gavin Reed.

It takes him three weeks to take the icy plunge; to dive head first where knows he won't be able to swim back out anymore.

It takes Nines three weeks to finally commit to saying those three little words aloud. A short trifecta of monosyllabic confessions that might as well be a thousand letters long. They certainly feel that way when he tries to roll them off his tongue. When he thinks them in his head, and tries to say them out loud, just to see how they taste now that he's admitted them aloud to another, and his secret is known. They feel monolithic when they almost come to pass, but they stick in his teeth, and he finds them stuck in his throat.

They had come to him so easily just last month, when he'd practically shouted his confession to his brother on the phone.

Now, it wasn't so easy, for whatever reason. They were thick within him, like molasses between his servos and wires. Plastered, though waiting to burst, but so stubborn in coming back out again. In practice, when he said them in his head, it was as if a heavy weight settled deep within him, reminding Nines that the next time the words passed his lips. . .

There was no going back.

Not that he wanted to, of course. He realized that now, all the implication be damned. But the task was practically of cosmic proportion all the same. Gargantuan, in fact.

Who could have known that love was such an intimidating thing?

The first few times he'd seen Gavin, he'd actually almost said them. Almost pushed them out of his throat, when Gavin would stroll into the shop, brush his wind-swept hair out of his eyes, and flash him a coy little smile. But just at the opportune moment, at the end of his own sentence, or between a sigh on Gavin's supple, handsome lips, it got stuck all the same. Every time he'd feel the consonants and vowels ready themselves, almost burst out, it almost seemed like they weren't ready. That they were telling him that the timing wasn't quite right. That they didn't want to simply punctuate the end of a sentence, or shimmy into place between a joke, or the puff of a cigarette swirling languidly into the air.

No. They needed more than that.

Or at the very least, it was a decent excuse Nines had come up with to justify his lack of nerve.

Yes, that's what he was. Nervous, and anxious, and afraid of the memory of how horrifically he'd hurt Gavin all those months ago.

What a sight he must be. The world's most pristinely engineered android hunter, million dollar chassis, state of the art programming, and a little thing like saying 'I love you' was the most daunting task he'd ever processed.

Deviancy was truly a bitch, sometimes.

_So write that down._

But as the weeks dragged by, Nines knew that sooner or later, things would come to a head. He could either face it head on, or he could let the right moment slip by, or maybe. . . not come at all.

Which simply wouldn't do.

So Nines decides to act like the supercomputer he is, and do his research. Take a little bit of all of the moments he finds online when searching 'how to tell someone you love them,' and set the stage for a perfect evening.

Even though he'll never admit it, he spends two whole nights marathoning top 2000s rom-coms that he knows Gavin secretly collects.

For research purposes.

Only to mitigate the chance of failure, and maybe think of something special in between. He watches a dozen confessions, a dozen cases of heartache, and heart-healing, and searing kisses trailing into 'i love you's,' and tries to think of a plan of his own.

Not that he really thinks it'll go wrong, considering that Gavin's feelings seem plain, but. . . the man did need a certain degree of delicacy.

And there was a bridge broken between them, still. From before.

God, he's so _sorry._

Because even though he's told him otherwise. . . even though he's cut the man to the very core, and promised he means nothing to him, Gavin means everything, in the end.

So, in the back of the shop, he'd gathered a smattering of items; puzzle pieces just waiting to be put together. The fragments of a promise. A plan.

An apology, in some ways.

For taking this long to realize how idiotic he's been.

For throwing them into the chaos of unbelonging. Almost ruining everything, in the end.

And that's where they are now. In the unknown. In the tumultuous state of 'will they, or won't they,' like some cliche in one of those movies he'd seen.

But Nines knows, now. He understands what the final act needs to be. Wants to see the rise, the climax, and the ending fall just as it should be.

With them together, at the close.

So he plans the perfect evening, just for one Gavin Reed, and all of the trouble, and the unbridled joy he brings him, all the same.

There's a dozen candles, and Gavin's favorite meal, and a confession waiting for him, tucked behind a few choice shelves, in the back of the store.

He's going for the coup de grace. The penultimate act; a finale to the past four months of agony they've both been facing. He'll take Gavin's hand in his own, and hold him close, and tell him how much he's ached to hold him again.

He'll do it in candle-light, with a low, sweet tone, maybe a kiss or three, and nobody on God's green earth to interrupt the show.

Gavin is worth it.

They're worth it.

When the moment comes. . . that's what it needs to mean.

 _Everything_ , that is.

* * *

Its a Friday night, and the cafe is empty.

No raffle. No patrons. No small talk and 'thank yous' from two lucky winners of the week.

The first time that Le Fenestre Saffron hasn't been bustling with the subtle sounds of laughter, and the gentle clatter of silverware, since January. Nonetheless, the sound of cooking still permeates the air.

Nines stands at the gas stove top, bar towel flung over his shoulder, black turtleneck and sleeves casually rolled to the elbow, slowly sautéing mushrooms and chicken with garlic and thyme. In the oven there's fresh rolls just about to finish, their light, delicious scent inundating the air. A coffee drip is slowly pattering like a drum while it percolates imported French espresso. Nines' mind is clear, and crystalline while he stirs, and slices, and seasons, and pours every ounce of his passion and sincerity into every stroke.

It's the night, he's decided.

He makes sure to give himself plenty of time to work out the nerves rattling around his chassis before Gavin's inevitable arrival.

Which, as he slowly moves back and forth between everything, checking that it's coming along perfectly for the hundredth time, should be any moment now.

Outside, in the distance, the uneven gait of rubber hitting the cobblestones a block or so away reaches Nines delicate ears. A deep blue flush rises on his cheeks. His hand shakes, just a bit, while it grips the wooden handle below. Behind him, the timer on the over chimes lightly. The coffee drips slower, and slower still, until there's a clear glass carafe of beautifully rich brown liquid sitting poised at the counter, piping hot, and heady with notes of chocolate and caramel. The pan in front of him is finally simmered down to the perfect consistency. Everything has come together.

Now or never, tin-can. Now, or never.

When the gentle bell at the top of the door chimes, Nines can't help but swallow with just a bit of nervous anticipation, knowing the dance that's about to begin. He checks the clock internally, and sees that it's 11:05. Thirty minutes later than Gavin normally shows. Of course he'd be late on tonight, of all nights.

His voice comes out with an oh so slight tremor when he speaks to the man in the doorway.

"You're late, it seems."

The shop door swings closed as the man steps inside, making his way towards the coat rack in the corner. Nines watches his reflection from the corner of his eye, bright, and dancing in the red of his window. The figure there shimmers, and ripples, joined by dozens of points of lights of the candles he'd so carefully placed, reflected like a thousand tiny suns in the red of the window. There's floral bouquets made of the same flowers Gavin had handed him all those weeks ago.

It's beautiful, really.

But there's no comment on their glow while the man continues on, a bit to his surprise.

Gavin trudges through the threshold, throwing Nines the bird while he throws his beat leather jacket onto the coat rack at the front, and shuffles his way over stiffly. He seems. . .

Automatic. Harangued. Adrift in the water. His shoulders are low, and Nines can see some dark circles under his eyes as he flops down at the counter, and puts his head in his hands, and doesn't even bother to sound a hello.

"I'm dead."

. . .

Nines doesn't know if he should laugh, or be concerned, and comes in front of Gavin, leaning low onto the countertop. Gavin lightly bangs his head into his hands, ignoring his movement. The detective takes a heavy sigh in, and out, and in again, and mumbles morosely through his fingers while he drags them languidly across the lines of his face.

Nines almost breaches the entire protocol of the evening, because the exhaustion in Gavin's eyes is almost too much to bear. He nearly reaches out to hold him in his arms, and demand to know what's plaguing him so, but Gavin finally explains a fraction before.

"No, let me rephrase. I'm _deceased_. _Departed_. _Expired._ _Slain_ where I sit. This is Gavin's ghost speaking, please leave a message after the beep."

Gavin's head slips from his hands and gently smacks against the counter below, and Nines can make out a short and terse _'beep'_ before the blow.

That solicits a short laugh from his lips, and he shakes his head, still unsure if the noise is inappropriate, considering. Well, whatever it was, it couldn't be too bad if Gavin was bothering to make jokes.

But then again, he always did turn everything into a spectacle.

So, who knows.

_Drama queen._

"Gavin?"

The detective doesn't move when he calls him.

". . . Gavin?"

Nothing, again.

Nines drums his fingers lightly on the counter, slowly realizing that Gavin's in a certain mood. Apparently fate has deemed that he'll need to work to extract the normal, sardonic Gavin Reed from deep within the husk of this exhausted golem.

But Nines was a clever thing. Two can play at that game. If he really was deceased, as he said. . .

"Excuse me, yes, this is android model RK-900 with an urgent message for the shambling corpse of one Detective Reed?"

A few seconds pass. The candles flicker on, reflecting myriad points of light in Nines second eye roll of the evening already, before finally, after yet another sigh, Gavin's muffled voice barely sounds.

"Thanks for calling dial-a-ghost, what the _fuck_ do you need from the specter of the world's most exhausted man?"

Yeah. That'll do it.

"Ah yes, I was wondering where Gavin was this evening, considering it seems as if he's barely even here despite sitting directly in front of me."

Gavin laughs, devoid of humor below.

"Well, since you asked so _nicely_. He's completely fallen apart at the seams after working a triple shift thanks to one Hank goddamn Anderson. Oh, didn't you hear? He just decided to pass the fuck out and get rushed to the hospital in the middle of the day. Right before a month's worth of reports were due for central office. And you know what? Turns out that being down a detective, and having the OTHER detective rush off after him in an ambulance like his goddamn mother can make a police department a little thin. Which means that SOME certain people have to work for thirty hours straight just to make sure the goddamn office doesn't crumble into dust. And take every call. And walk in. And every other apocalyptic piece of bullshit in between."

Gavin sighs again, and Nines can hear his voice break and strain with overuse.

"Or something like that, don't ask me, I'm just the ghost. Can I take a message for you? He'll get back to you in, oh, I dunno, a thousand years. . . Actually, make it a million. A _million_ years of _fucking_ sleep, that's what Gavin's gonna get before he does literally anything, ever again."

Nines snorts, offering a third eye roll at Gavin's tragic monologue.

"Ah, is that all? How is the aforementioned detective, though? I wondered why Connor hadn't stopped by the past few days. I hope it wasn't serious."

Gavin shrugs noncommittally, head still firmly planted on the counter while his shoulders shuffle in some vague motion.

"Who the hell knows. Apparently he's fine. Finally got released today for a, and I quote, _'mandatory three day suspension pending medical clearance,'_ whatever the fuck that means. Connor just got back two hours ago and he only halfway looked like he had thrown a gasket, so, can't be that bad, whatever it was."

Nines makes a small humming noise, conceding to the logic before going back to stand full in front of Gavin's wretched posture.

"Well, all that aside, whenever you two decide to conjoin back into Gavin's corporeal form, please let him know that he was late for an exceedingly important occasion. Also, I'd like him to join me as soon as humanly, so tell him to hurry back into tangible existence, please."

Gavin raises his hand a few inches off the counter to wave limply towards Nines before his palm slaps down onto the counter again.

"I'll let him know you called, thanks."

. . .

"Wait, what occasion?"

Gavin's head slowly lifts a few inches off of the countertop, eyes questioning, some degree of implication reaching past the veil of his exhaustion.

"Am I missing something?"

Eye roll number four.

"Clearly."

Gavin throws him a questioning glance, and Nines meets it with a soft half-smirk while Gavin slowly comes around fully to the present moment at hand.

". . . Fuck you, asshole."

A genuine smile makes its way onto the fine lines at the corner of Gavin's mouth, and Nines can't help but to chuckle at the man's ridiculousness.

"Why, he's back."

"Yeah, yeah, you thought it was goddamn hilarious."

"Keep telling yourself that, detective."

Gavin finally raises himself up onto the stool with yet another middle finger, and a crack of his back. He moves the heels of his hands into his eyes yet again, trying to wipe the remnants of the last three days away. When he removes his palms, he blinks a few times out into the dim light, finally noticing the state of the dark room. He blinks a few times, unsure, obviously thinking there's something happening to his vision.

"You finally catching up, Reed?"

Gavin cocks his head to the side, and Nines makes a spinning gesture for Gavin to turn around.

When he comes about, slowly, Nines watches the way his muscles come to stiffen. The moment he's fully turned, and can see the breadth of the room, Nines starts to smirk to himself. It really does look breathtaking.

And it must be the last thing in the world Gavin expects to see.

Across the shop, in the red of the window, by the blooms, among the points of starlight flickering across the panes, there's a dappled little point of cerulean spinning right behind the confused, and shocked, and slow trickle of questions creeping onto Gavin's face.

Before Gavin can say anything, and before Nines does anything else, he feels a shudder roll through his chassis. Deep. Unrestrained. Thunderous. The moment at hand coils within him, and for a moment, he just stares. He stares at the reflection of them there, in the glass of the saffron-red window, and thinks that for the first time, in a long time. . .

He's _exactly_ where he needs to be.

Gavin doesn't move in his spot. Nines says nothing. He simply takes an extra second to catalog the way the light refracts the soft, and nervous expression on Gavin's face, and copies it in his memory a thousand times.

". . . Gavin. . . you can turn back around at some point, you know."

Nines tries to beckon to the man before him with a bit of a teasing note in his tone.

"R-- right, yeah. Sure thing."

Gavin's voice catches, and he shakes his head lightly, like he'd forgotten all at once that talking and speaking were necessary facets of the human experience. When he finally turns towards Nines again, Nines can see something nervous has come over him.

"Gavin, I'm--"

"Nines, I--"

They speak at once, voices catching each other in exactly the same second, forming an unexpected harmony in the dim light of the evening before them. Nines snaps his jaw shut, and Gavin does the same, both turning respective shades of red and blue in the soft glow.

After a few moments, something folds between them. The long chasm that has been beating against them begins to close. Gavin might be ridiculous, might be an idiot, at times, but he understands it's all for him, and Nines knows he does. Their eyes raise together, and they have a million things within them. A billion words to say, and are yet unable to say anything at all. It's a tender thing, really.

Nines heart thunders wildly in his plastic chest.

Eventually, their expressions melt into something more heavy. Gavin swallows just a bit, and Nines watches the lithe curve of his neck while his Adam's apple bobs up and down. While he stares, perplexed, enthralled, entranced, even, Nines couldn't process a one or a zero of his own code, even if he tried.

Slowly, he realizes, there's the faint smell of jasmine, and cedar, dancing through the air.

He almost decides to completely forget all of the formality and occasion he'd tried to curate, right then and there, and reach across the table to bury his fingers in Gavin's silk-soft hair, and taste that pale plane of his throat.

Somehow, by whatever cosmic grace, he resists. Nines floats back down to reality a bit. The gentleman that he is, or was programmed to be, inclines Nines to turn his gaze away, and give Gavin space to think on his own.

His feet carry him back to the stove, and he begins to gather everything he's prepared.

While he walks, with an almost sub-sonic step, he thinks he hears a faint noise of protest from behind Gavin's lips, for daring to look away.

It spreads wildfire in his veins.

He almost breaks, again.

Damn his programming. Damn his inclinations. Damn it all to hell, really.

 _Anything_ else - another glance, or hum, or anything at all - and he'll break, he knows.

So Nines works as quickly as possible, and a minute later there's three things conjured before Gavin's eyes. While porcelain filled with chicken, mushrooms, and caramelized onions. A fresh sprig of thyme on top, perfectly centered in a tiny mound of green. A side serving of freshly baked bread, with a crust daring to be cracked open. A single red rose, in a brilliant blue vase, that matches his eyes. He knows it's Gavin's favorite. 

When he sets the final item down, a tall cup of coffee, three sugars and two dashes of cream, swirling languid tendrils of steam into the spiced air, Gavin gives him a look. One of his capital L 'looks,' that are so singularly himself.

_'What the fuck is this?'_

His voice is choked as it comes.

"So, uh. . . I don't remember ordering takeout, tin-can."

Nines smirks, and leans back on the counter behind him, tapping his fingers gently against the marble top.

"No, but I realized something the other day."

"Oh, yeah? What's that?" Gavin asks, picking up the fork and stabbing into a mushroom with a slight bit of hesitation.

"You've never really eaten anything I've made before, have you?"

Gavin shakes his had tersely, rolling his eyes.

"Well I might have, if you hadn't chased me out of this joint every time I tried to order anything."

"And whose fault was that, in the first place?" Nines offers, plain, and simple, unable to keep himself from honesty.

Gavin says nothing in return, keeping his eyes trained firmly on the fork before him. Nines can see his jaw clench slightly.

It isn't the reaction he exactly intended.

"Well even before we get to that. . . I know you've lost weight recently, Gavin. You probably thought you could hide it, considering you wear an even chunkier sweater of some fashion every time I see you. . ."

Gavin blushes slightly, muttering under his breath something that sounds like 'what do you know,' or 'fucking laser eyes, I swear to god,' and Nines goes on.

"So that being said, I thought you'd appreciate the opportunity to consume nutrients that weren't from a box, or a bag, or wrapped in to-go paper."

Gavin snorts, and narrows his eyes sarcastically, and the fork clatters back to the porcelain setting below.

"What is this, the world's most romantic interrogation?"

"No, not really. I wasn't intending it to be, at the very least. But considering you just told me you've been up for nearly three days, and you've likely been keeping yourself afloat with nothing but coffee and cigarettes, I think the suggestion of a proper meal isn't completely out of order."

Gavin crosses his arms together, leaning back with a huff.

"Yeah, whatever. Thanks dad, I'll make sure I eat my vegetables, okay?"

"You're welcome, son."

. . .

Gavin blinks, slowly.

". . . Was. . . was that your attempt at a _dad joke_?"

"Something like that."

"Oh my fucking _god_ , _please_ don't ever do that again."

Nines shrugs, incredulous.

"I thought it was an applaudable attempt."

Gavin squints his eyes shut, waving away Nines side of the argument.

"No, nope, no it wasn't. Now I've got images in my brain. Didn't need that."

Nines smiles, unable to resist playing a bit of a tease.

"Oh come now, it's a perfectly normal suggestion. . . And did you know that a rather large swath of the adult population has a penchant for intimate relationships that use role-play scenarios known as 'Dadd--"

"NO. NO. NOT INTO THAT SHIT. FUCKIN' STOP. PLEASE, I'LL DO ANYTHING."

Gavin groans unamused, and pinches the bridge of his nose while Nines dissolves into a peal of clear, genuine laughter. When the moment subsides a bit, and Gavin stops grumbling incoherently, Nines feels with everything in him that he's missed this. Their banter. Their amicable quarrels disguised in sarcasm. Gavin's particular brand of weird, and his own mismatching sense of decorum.

They do make some kind of a pair, don't they?

Nines rocks back on his heels, and Gavin stops muttering for long enough to remember there's dinner in front of him when his stomach growls loudly. Still obviously displeased at the joke, he decides to start shoveling food in his mouth to quell the need for more implicative conversation.

But any kind of comment that might have been brewing in the moment dies the second that Gavin chews, and slows, and swallows with a perceptible sluggishness that implies one of two things. The careful, and controlled way that he sets his hands back down, and stares, says that he's either just been disturbed by what's gone in his mouth, or--

"Nines. . . seriously though. . . the hell is all of this?"

Nines blinks, a bit confused at exactly what he means.

And he's unable to resist.

"It's. . . well that's called 'dinner,' or 'supper,' in some cultures, Gavin. I believe you should have heard of it? The meal following breakfast and lunch, typically consumed between the hours of five and nine o'clo--"

"No, you _asshole,_ I mean. . ."

Gavin's look changes into something inscrutable. His eyebrows furrow just a bit at the corners, and he stares intently at the things laid out in front of him.

Without saying another word, he reaches for the coffee. He bashedly raises the cup to his lips, and drinks deep, in one swift, resolute _'gulp.'_

"It's perfect."

It comes out so quiet that Nines almost doesn't hear it. The mug slowly descends back to the counter below.

When he sets it back down, Nines sees. . .

Well, a thousand different things.

Most notably, and even further to his confusion. . . pain.

A little bit of regret mixed in, which isn't much of a shock. . .

Melancholy; maybe for their diner, all those mornings, all the thousand questions they asked each other in their little game, and--

"You know, when I walked in here that first morning and saw you behind the counter, I kind of hated you a little bit."

\-- whatever _that_ meant.

"There I was, thinking I'd never see you again after you ran off, and you'd been about a thousand yards away down the road the entire time."

Nines stays silent, unsure of how to respond.

"I just. . . I thought at first that you were doing it on purpose, you know? Revenge or some shit. Probably deserved it, to be honest. But it just. . . I just. . ."

A minute passes, and Nines feels uncomfortable as the silence stretches on.

". . . Do you mind elaborating on that particular emotion? I can't say I was too pleased to see you either, considering. We didn't. . . I didn't leave on good terms, Gavin. I didn't really want to see you, honestly. And that first morning? Especially not after that for a while, considering that, at a glance, you could have been mistaken as on a date with your blond friend."

Gavin snorts, annoyed, briefly sidestepping from the previous shadow of uncertainty dotting his face.

"Did you miss the whole entire part of our relationship where I told you multiple times per day that I was approximately the world's biggest sucker for a tight male ass in some skinny jeans?"

"No, trust me, I didn't. And I realized my mistake quickly enough, but. . ."

Nines pauses a beat, tapping his fingers still, a question already on his tongue, but unable to ignore the choice of words.

Well, one word, to be precise.

". . . Is that what we had, Gavin? A relationship?"

Gavin's mouth snaps shut at that, and his eyebrows furrow back into the same pessimistic glance as before.

"I. . ."

Gavin stops short, and Nines goes on.

"All those late nights at the precinct. . . all those mornings with coffee, and banter, and the intentional brush of your shoe against mine underneath the table, which I know you did on purpose. . . I would have thought they were. . ."

". . .Thought they were what, tin-can?"

Gavin's voice sounds close to breaking.

Nines feels the same.

"Enough to get you to _stop._ "

Nines bores the cerulean of his eyes directly into the black within Gavin's own.

He takes the plunge.

He dives right in.

Gavin swallows, and his voice sounds full of gravel as it comes out again.

"I just. . ."

"You _'just' what_ , Gavin? Do you know how _frustrating_ it is to hear that word come out of your mouth? You've come here so many times, with some ridiculous gesture, or obnoxious promise to do some grandiose thing just to prove yourself to me. . . declaring this and that, but you know what? It was all ignoring everything from before. What mattered, back then. Do you know what did, Gavin? More than anything?"

He flinches.

"Don't. . . please."

"What _mattered_ was when I said the one thing I never wanted was for you to put yourself in harm's way for me. When I asked-- no, when I _begged_ you to never put yourself in the path of a bullet for me again."

Gavin's hands are white knuckled at the edge of the counter-top.

"Nines, just _stop_ , okay, you don't--"

"No, Gavin, YOU don't."

Nines shoves himself upright, fists clenching into some deadly, dangerous form at his sides. His eyes flash with something that is passion, and a thunderstorm, and kindled anger, all the same.

"Do you know what it felt like to be covered in your blood, sitting in a hospital waiting room, having an on call doctor who only graduated third in their class - and yes, I looked it up whilst waiting _ever_ so patiently - tell you that all he could do was _'try his best?'_ That they'd _'attempt'_ to save your leg? That there wasn't a guarantee, after all? And let's not forget just how many times they had to use CPR on you. Do you know what it feels like to have someone who you. . . who you. . . someone who means the _world_ in your eyes look paler than the sheet underneath them? I didn't enter stasis for a _week,_ waiting for you. I didn't want to miss a _second,_ not if it could have been your last. And every time you come here, every _fucking_ time, Gavin, I watch you limp, and hobble, and I think to myself it's my fault that you'll never be the same. . ."

Gavin rubs the palms of his hands into his eyes, groaning aloud something fierce, and flashes a warning look of his own out from beneath his fingers, but Nines presses on.

"I should have stopped you. I should have hit you over, and over, until you got it in your thick, dense skull, that you're not unbreakable. That I can survive a bullet wound to the chest, or the leg, or wherever else, but you CAN'T, Gavin. You can't, and yet you always act like the universe will somehow bend to your ridiculousness just because you will it. It doesn't work that way, Gavin. People get hurt."

Nines slams his fist down on the counter, and the thing groans beneath him.

" _You_ get hurt."

His fist curls into a tight little ball, and his nails scratch lines into the filigree while they go.

". . . What I'm trying to say, Gavin, is that you could have died. You almost did. And then you woke up, and you acted like nothing had changed. Like nothing needed to change between us. I tried to ignore it too, for your ignorant sake, but I couldn't, and when I told you it was the one request I had between us, you said it was too much to promise again. You said that I was trying to 'fix' you, just like everyone always did, and you forced my hand. You made me walk away, Gavin. That was _you._ "

Nines sharply sucks in a breath, eyes wavering in the midnight.

"But more than all of that. Honestly? Do you know what hurts the most? More than _anything_?"

Nines turns his head sharply to the right, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, biting down until he tastes a small tang of thirium on the roof of his mouth.

"I'm offended that you thought I could imagine a lifetime-- no, a single, _fucking_ second in this stupid, ridiculous world, that I _never_ asked to be born into, without _you_ in it, Gavin Reed."

The air between them chills, and heats at the same time. The charge of Nines words electrifies the cafe. In that moment, there is no other place in the entirety of the world. There is nowhere else but the there, and now, and the implication of Nines words reverberating amidst the petals, and the flames. They're just two lonely souls, begging, and scrabbling for purchase, drowning in the unfathomable depth of life's tidal pull.

Both knowing that they were always so very close to drowning, or staying alive, and no other outcomes in between.

Both so _tired_ of only treading water.

And on this night, with complete and utter conviction, Nines has made his choice. To swim back, and cast out a line, and call Gavin to their shore.

When Nines words finally still, crescendo into nothing, fade into silence, only the sound of their breathing remains.

After a few seconds, Gavin huffs loudly, and shoves away from the countertop.

He swings around with his back to Nines yet again, and hobbles over to the window, and the candles, staring out into the black and the stars of the evening. He counts a dozen faint pinpoints of light, all somewhat dim amidst the bright city sky, tinged red by the windowpanes. Nines can see him trembling, in his reflection in the glass, in the corner of his vision.

Neither of them say anything, but they both know what needs to be done.

Nines has offered his cards.

Now or never, Gavin Reed.

This was the moment.

They either speak, or they cease, and the time for the decision has come.

While Nines waits on the razor's edge, he watches Gavin gently raise his hand to poke at the slow drips of wax over one of the candle's sides. It curls in on itself under his fingers, warm, touch-soft, and beads gently near the top by the flame. Nines watches him, giving him space, giving him time, because they both know that that this has to happen now, ambiance, and dinner, and yearning aside.

Nines is done with inaction. He is done with pining. He is real, and alive, and so is what he feels in the most root functions within him.

Nines can tell that Gavin's on the verge of decision as he stands there, slowly shifting his weight on and off of that goddamn leg while he looks anywhere but Nines.

He can see his face is pained.

It makes Nines irrevocably sad, really, to see him even consider closing back up once again. For entertaining the thought.

And why?

Why was Gavin always trying to hide some part of himself? Refuse to admit something when it actually mattered? Why did he always hide things away, beneath a mask, and falsities, and keep himself away from really being known?

Why does Gavin feel the constant need to sacrifice himself, serve the sake of others, but keep himself alone?

Wouldn't things be easier? Wouldn't the world feel a little less heavy on his shoulders if he could share the burden of life with another? If he understood that he doesn't have to do it alone?

That someone is there who is willing to pick up his pieces, for once?

That there's someone who. . .

Nines makes a decision, then.

His fists clench, and unclench, gently, but with firm determination, and he exits from his perch behind the glass cabinet. He quickly strides three paces to the left, towards the swinging hatch that opens out into the front of the store, and Gavin beyond. He walks through, calm, more focused than he's ever felt in the ten months he's been alive, and goes out to the man - that ridiculous, idiotic, stupid man named Gavin Reed - with his heart on his sleeve.

Gavin hears him when he's just a few steps away, and turns back on his heels.

He's got something of his own sewn deep in his eyes.

Uncertainty, and certainty. Longing, and yearning. Pleading, and ache.

An apology, in between.

"I'm sorry. I take it all back, Nines, I fucking _swear._ I-I'll explain everything if you let me. But just. . . Say it for me, this time. _Tell me._ I need to hear it, from you. If you say it, I'll finally believe you. I'll let you in. If you say it, I'm yours."

"Gavin."

Nines steps close, folds himself into the space in front of Gavin's arms, and takes his head so gently between his palms. A single, lonely thumb traces the outline of his chin, and his jaw, and the space behind his neck, where the skin is soft as down beneath his synthetic nerves. The scent of jasmine, and cedar floats gently into the air.

Gavin looks up, and they _burn._

Nines evokes every bit of what he feels in a single, solitary breath.

_"Je te veux, toujours."_

He traces the little freckle on the corner of Gavin's mouth, to the red of his cheeks.

_"Tu fais partie de mon âme."_

Nines brushes a lone wisp of hair from his eyes, and lingers at the edge of his brow.

_"Tu es tout, ma cherie."_

And he saves the final sentence for last. For _after._

He lifts Gavin's chin, three degrees up, in the most perfect, familiar angle, written into memory from all those months ago, and leans forward.

Gavin blinks. He blinks again, and as Nines moves towards him, pupils so wide, he ever so gently places his hand over Nines thin, rosy lips, and the android stills to a halt.

. . .

Nines stares, molecules away.

Gavin peers out from underneath his lashes, with an angelic, benevolent smirk.

"Look, I know we're having a moment here, and like, I really, _really_ don't want to ruin it, but. . ."

Gavin clears his throat.

". . .What in the holy _fuck_ did you just say?"

. . .

. . .

. . .

"Are you kidding me right now?"

Nines leans back half a foot, and glares cool, sharp daggers down at the place he was just a fraction of a second before.

"Look, I don't have a billion languages programmed in my brain, babe."

"It was _one_ , Reed. _One_ language. I thought the implication was fairly obvious, not to mention I wasn't finished."

"Okay my bad, but honestly, you lost me."

He's going to simply cease to function based on the sheer stupidity of the man in front of him, alone.

"I finally begin to say the one thing you've been hounding me to admit for three months--"

"I mean, I barely speak coherent fucking English as it is, so how in the shit did you expect me to--"

An error message pops in the corner of Nines' vision, letting him know an errant piece of code has been detected in his subroutines as he grinds his teeth.

"Said _quite_ beautifully, in fact, in the language meant for this kind of opining, and then you--"

"What, you mean Italian? Is that what it was?"

It. . . Italian.

Murder.

He could murder this man.

One flick of his wrist and he's going to just. . .

"Nearly _four_ months, Gavin Reed, of you haunting me like the eleventh Egyptian plague, and--"

"For fucks _sakes_ , tin-can, set phasers to _'small words in English that Gavin can understand,'_ and just--'"

Nines leans down, sighing, rolling his eyes, groaning every bit of frustration, and passion, and frustration, and endearment he's ever felt towards one Gavin Theodore Reed, and fits his lips over Gavin's incessant mouth, because it's all he can do to keep himself sane.

It's halfway out of frustration, and halfway out of endearment, and mostly done because the one thing that Nines wants more in that instant than telling Gavin he never wants to let him go again, is to show him so.

And to stop that sarcastic mouth from moving.

And it works.

. . .For a moment.

Until Gavin realizes that Nines is there, right there above him, working his mouth in greedy little motions over the soft plane of his lips, and they part with a whimper, and then a groan, as he slides his tongue in.

And they ignite.

The feel of Gavin on the synthetic cool of his skin scorches him completely; they meld together, skin over skin, lips, and teeth, and tongue, and they fall into a rhythm that both of them have been aching to feel every day, in all the months since it was gone.

_Foolish._

Nines has been so _very_ foolish, he decides, sliding his thumb along the molten strip of skin along Gavin's lithe neck, running the tips of his fingers right under to his collarbones, and back again, finding every single purchase that they can.

The way that Gavin tastes on his tongue, the unique chemical signature that 's nobody's but his own, and the way his body feels like nothing else. . .

God, he missed this.

Missed him.

_Them._

And in that moment, Nines knows more than anything he has ever known before, that he will never, EVER, as long as his circuits fire, and there's strength beating in his bleeding blue heart, let him go again.

They both come up for air, then, gasping, reeling. Nines lays his head gently against Gavin's own, and he watches the way the light catches on the corner of his mouth in the flickering glow around them.

"So. . ."

Gavin speaks, licking his lips once, twice, kneading his hands into the small of Nines' back, beneath the soft hem of his sweater above.

He leans back, staring up at Nines, a smirk on the horizon line of his mouth, red-tinged with the fever-flush of the bite Nines had given them just moments ago. He moves his right hand slowly away from Nines' back, across his shoulder blade, down to the forearm gripping him like a man possessed.

Nines simply stares, bewitched by the desire set deep in Gavin's eyes, that he knows is for him, and him alone.

Gavin laughs softly, knowing exactly what Nines sees within them.

They still need to talk. He knows that. But right now, it can wait.

For now, there's something that needs to be heard.

"Gonna admit you're in love with me now, asshole?"

Nines swings low, moving to close the gap between them again, something sparkling in the depth of his eyes.

"Yes."

He hesitates just a hair's breadth away, until their lips are ghosting with the heat of each other again, right where they belong. A single sentence, then, and all at once, they’re lost in each other, again.

"I love you, Gavin Reed."

The curtain between them comes to a close. The climax wanes in the candle light. There's nothing but the feel of them together.

It's _everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSLATION//
> 
> Des fleurs, du café, des mots et l'obscurité.  
> [Flowers, coffee, words, and the dark.]
> 
> Je te veux, toujours.  
> [I want you, always.]
> 
> Tu fais partie de mon âme.  
> [You are part of my soul.]
> 
> Tu es tout, ma cherie.  
> [You are everything, my darling.]


	11. Au Temps Avant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from the dead.
> 
> Huzzah.
> 
> Oh I'm sorry, did you want a nice, fluffy chapter that wouldn't rip your heart out by the ventricles and leave you a writhing mass of emotions?
> 
> My bad. I thought you'd all like to know why Gavin ended up such a messed up bundle of self-mistrust and unrepentant self-sacrifice.
> 
> Time for a major time-skip y'all. This is only part one of a real messed up couple of chapters. Buckle up my guys. 
> 
> [Gavin Reed backstory incoming]

_October 2015 // [25 Years Earlier]_

* * *

The first time Gavin gets high, he's thirteen years old.

He's a freshman at Central High School West, situated lopsidedly in the cracked-sidewalk and broken-building middle of Detroit, and he knows just as much as everyone else, he looks like a _dork_. Unruly hair. Gangly limbs, too long for his relatively stocky torso. Chipping black nail polish, applied on some effort to hearken back to the 'scene' kid days of the early 2000s (the superior decade for music and fashion, in his not so humble opinion). He's got a pair of chopped and chewed earbuds always in his jacket, connected to an old, broken iPod shuffle. It only presses play, and doesn't skip songs, but he doesn't care because he wouldn't dare trade it for the world because it was just like him; a pure, fucking, _mess_.

And there's always some pair of hand me down clothes, not really fitting _quite_ right, never flattering really, picked out at the church-run charity store around the corner, because it's all his Dad's pathetic salary can afford.

And behind that there's a wife, and a brilliant son, and finally, one that was never really wanted in the first place, that Mr. Jonah Kamski's got to provide for _anyway_.

_'On behalf of the State of Michigan, this municipal court awards sole custody of one Gavin Theodore to Mr. Jonah S. Kamski, awarded with no contest. As the sole living relative of the child after the death of the mother, Ms. Elizabeth M. Reed, Mr. Kamski will have--'_

They're working-class poor. Nowhere to go but where they are, and where they'll always be, fresh off the block of Petosky-Ostego, only the _fourth_ worst neighborhood in all of Detroit.

It could be worse.

It could certainly fucking be better.

Gavin goes to public school, because of course he will ( ~~it's not like they have the money for more than one son to get a decent education, and certainly not the _accident_~~ ). It's only four blocks away from their shitty old house on West Boston Boulevard. Convenient. Below-average.

What other choice would he have, anyway?

Eli gets sent to some private school across the city from Kindergarten to graduation, always on some full-ride scholarship, the 'smartest child Detroit has ever seen,' because of _course_ he is. He'll get another full-ride to some far off college, finish that in a year or two, and soon enough it'll just be Gavin at home with two people that never wanted him.

Because of _course_ he will. Not that he hates him for it. But sometimes, on the right days, watching the rain pour onto the rippling concrete of the schoolyard through a cracked window-pane and metal bars to keep the kids in his shitty school--

~~Sometimes. . .~~

And so Gavin Theodore Kamski, smart, but not _that_ bright, not _THAT_ shining of a star, walks to school every day, from Kindergarten to 9th grade, to the same shitty district that serves the whole neighborhood, and ends up pretty much alone.

But he's used to it by the time that freshman year rolls around, so.

It's okay.

~~It's fine.~~

. . .

It's October.

He's huddled behind a green and black dumpster, the one that everyone knows to hide next to if they don't want to be caught doing something they shouldn't. It sticks out at this awkward angle behind the high-school's cafeteria; almost 90 degrees perpendicular from the retaining wall, and there's this little nine-square-feet or so of nothing behind.

So naturally, it's used daily by the less savory crowds of Central West.

The principal had installed a camera there, some years ago, spurned by the actions of deviants prior, but someone had broken the thing clean off it's stand sometime along the way.

They'd never paid to get it fixed, because the school just didn't have the money, and if a couple of nobodys from the fourth-worst neighborhood in all of Detroit wanted to ruin their lives getting high off their ass, who fucking _cares_.

So nobody does.

No one ever does, it seems, in that half-forgotten part of the city. Not quite the worst, but not nearly the best. Unremarkable, all the same.

Just like the five kids huddled behind the dumpster that fateful October will be, one day, while they sit in a circle, and do anything but help their own future.

They've settled into a crude circle, talking shit, waiting for a gram of what Gavin thinks is just some bunk weed to get rolled in a thin layer of cigarillo paper.

"Come on, Gavin, you some kind of bitch? Huh? Gonna be a pussy?"

"Fuck man, he's too scared. _Told_ you."

"Come on guys, quit. Gav, I know you're chill, man. It's alright, just do a little."

A freckled hand to Gavin's right holds out something rolled horribly in a thin piece of paper. It sticks out too far at the end, like it's only the second time someone's ever tried to roll a blunt before, because it probably is, and it takes five flicks of a lighter to finally catch fire.

There's three other boys with Gavin, and a girl he always tries to ignore.

John Morris. Davis Burgen. The aforementioned blond chick, sitting cross legged in the corner. And Stephen Killenward. Gavin's _best_ friend.

~~Gavin's only friend.~~

All of them are on the varsity football team, even though they're Freshmen. John's a half-back. Davis is a linebacker, Gavin thinks.

Stephen's the quarterback. Built like Adonis, with an arm that can barrel a good 70 yard hail-mary easy, and the youngest the team's had in two decades.

Because of _course_ he is.

Gavin tried out for the team back in August, cracked black fingernails on top of trembling, nervous fingers not even knowing what to do with the orange ball while the meat-head coach barked orders under the hot Summer sun. Even though he hates fucking football, and sports, and all of the 'ooh-rah' that goes along with it. But he didn't do it for the camaraderie. He didn't embarrass the ever-living hell out of himself and get bruised black and blue from the douchebags that didn't play by the 'no-contact' order for his _health_.

He did it for Stephen; so they could be close. So he could have a chance of seeing him for more than five seconds passing in the hallway now that their lives were so separate nowadays. And oh yeah, there's that one other little reason too.

He's had a crush on him since the first day he saw him, back in sixth grade.

Gavin can remember every day of their friendship in almost perfectly clarity if he really tries. It's not really hard, though. He thinks about him every day. All the time.

~~It's the only good thing to have ever happened to him.~~

. . .

There Stephen had stood in Ms. Hennig's class-- Marvel Comics backpack, all freckles, orange hair and teeth, and a goofy little smile that only went halfway up one side, sticking his bony little arm out to shake Gavin's hand.

"Hi, dude! I'm Stephen. Killenward. Stephen Killenward. Look's like we're gonna be next to each other a lot, huh?"

Gavin gives the boy a look somewhere between 'bewildered he's even being spoken to' and 'waiting for the inevitable punchline to follow.'

"What?"

Gavin's gap front teeth whistle a bit while he talks in that squeaky, annoying voice of his that all the other boys and girls seem to find off-putting. But the boy simply smiles, and carries on like he didn't hear anything at all.

" _Kamski_. . . _Killenward_. Nobody's last name starts with ' _K_ ' in the rest of the class, so like, we're roll-call buddies. For the rest of time."

Stephen's hand shoots out between them, and he makes Gavin do a ridiculous pinkie promise, even though they're eleven, and it already feels ridiculously juvenile to do. But he does it anyway. Because for the first time, he's not being looked at like he's stupid. Like he's nobody. He's staring down the barrel of friendship, and it's something he's never really had. So he extends him arm, shy, timid, and the ginger-haired boy closes the gap prematurely, waving their joined pinkies in the air. The pact is sealed.

"Cool man. We're friends for _life_. Don't even _think_ about forgetting it."

Stephen winks, and they sit, and the memory is seared into Gavin's brain.

 _Friends for life_.

It's. . . 

Nice.

Gavin blushes, and some as of yet unidentified feeling crushes across his chest from the inside out. He never forgets how warm his cheeks felt while he tried to learn about rational numbers that first week of school, but couldn't seem to listen to a word the teacher said, and couldn't rip the smile from the corner of his mouth after that first day.

Stephen's his very first friend.

They keep their pinkie-promise.

They do everything together that school-year, and the Summer beyond.

Not that there's really much to _do,_ quite frankly, in Petosky-Ostego. It's just unmowed grass, and broken glass bottles, littered across crumbling parts of the city filled with squatters and crack-heads all around.

But they make it work, like all children do, when there's not much.

They ride halfway broken bikes, with sticking gears and handlebars missing. They race each other around the block a dozen times, shoving each other playfully to get the lead in made-up Olympic Games until they pass out from exhaustion. They find a deflated basketball and pretend like Gavin doesn't have the worst hand-eye coordination either one of them has seen. They find the perfect tree to climb, and sit under the leaves, making up stories for the cars that drive by.

That particular practice becomes a daily ritual that Summer, and they spend the days amongst the leaves with eyes in the sky.

"That lady's pregnant, and they're speeding because she has to get to the hospital before she has the baby in the car," Gavin guesses, watching a shitty old Ford rattle by, going 65 in a 30.

"That guy's definitely buying drugs. He's swerving, right? They're always so nervous," Stephen adds, pointing out a Toyota Corolla struggling with two wheels going on and off the curb.

"Those two guys just got married. They're on their way to their honeymoon, and they're arguing because they forgot to pack their toothbrushes back at home," Gavin adds, pointing to a Jeep filled with two college-age boys, bickering while a dog pants and lolls its tongue in the back seat.

Something tells Gavin he wouldn't mind being married, one day. Wouldn't mind having a Jeep, and a dog, and someone in the passenger seat.

~~Wouldn't mind having Stephen in the passenger seat.~~

". . . You're really weird, Gavin, you know that?"

Stephen gives him a look. The images of what won't ever be melt away on Gavin's sweat-sticky skin, and he shrugs like they never were even there.

He doesn't argue with his friend. Not like he's wrong.

Other times that Summer they'd climb on the roof of Gavin's parents townhouse, steal Stephen's brother's Playboys, and look at the women laid out on the pages. Sometimes Gavin would lie, and pretend that the naked breasts in the centerfold got him hard, too when Stephen points out how 'hot' they are. When Stephen asks what kind of chicks Gavin's into, he picks some random woman from TV to say he's got a crush on, even though he forgets what her name is half of the time when he tries to lie about it, not knowing what else to say. They sit on the roof, and play with the dozens of shingles that are all falling off, and bitch and moan about anything and everything they can think of while the moon rises above them, and their little twelve-year-old daydreams.

It's the best school-break that Gavin ever has.

Stephen seems to grow three inches between sixth and seventh grade. He gets taller every time he sees him, it feels like, until he starts to tower right over Gavin, and he develops a complex about the inches that just haven't happened for him yet. But Gavin maybe get's half of one, and that's only when he's wearing his converse, bought from that second hand store, with a hole already halfway worn in the left shoe's heel.

Luckily, Stephen's hair is atrocious, at _all_ times. Curly, and wild, and shooting out in five million ginger-tinged directions every day of the week. Gavin's is worse in some ways. Dark, and rough, and split at the ends, usually, thanks to the dollar store shampoo he uses. And fuck him if he can't get his giant cowlick to stop making him look like a toddler.

One day, Stephen tries to cut his own mangled hair with a pair of his sister's scissors. It comes out lopsided, and horrible, and wrong. They almost piss themselves laughing, while they look at the hack-job in the mirror at Stephen's mother's house.

"Makes your sorry ass look like freakin' Frankenstein," Gavin says, and it becomes an inside joke. A nickname that only they know.

They manage to find Stephen's step-dad's razor, and they shave it all off, until only a buzz gets left behind.

"Well, Gav, whatcha think?"

Stephen flexes, and poses like he-man, and Gavin says he's the weirdest, half-bald, gangly idiot in all of the land.

It only makes Gavin like him more.

While they clean the hair off the floor, and Gavin goes beet-red when he sees a little bit of pale skin under the battered old Nirvana shirt Stephen's wearing, It's the first time he admits to himself that huh. . .

He probably likes boys.

When Gavin sees their names together on the roll-call when they start Seventh grade that year, he's glad, for the first and last time, in the entirety of his life, that his last name is Kamski.

. . .

They spend the whole year passing notes, doodling little sketches in the corners of their desks, always together, because that one-single letter.

Halfway through the Fall semester, Stephen draws this picture of Mrs. Garland, the bitchy history teacher that nobody likes, blown up like a puffer fish with spikes on the side. He writes 'big fat meanie' on the side of the paper, and Gavin almost chokes in the middle of the lecture it's so damn hilarious. She stalks over to them when she hears the noise, and forces Gavin to show her what they're laughing about.

She threatens detention, no, _suspension_ , while she demands to know who did it.

So Gavin lies, and covers for Stephen, saying he drew it, while his friend looks on with wide, unsure eyes as he's carted off to the principal.

Gavin gets suspended for that week she promised, plus a month of detention on top of things for mouthing off further. His father smacks him on the side of the mouth when Gavin asks him to sign the notice, drawing blood at the corner of his mouth.

Gavin doesn't regret his decision for one single, fucking, second. When he comes back, Stephen's got a week's worth of notes waiting for Gavin, prepped with one big drawing of Gavin dressed up like a superhero, and 'I'm sorry' on the front in big, wide letters.

By the end of the year, Gavin's got a whole composition book filled with their stupid little notes. An anthology of Stephen and Gavin; the class clowns. The best friends.

They're _inseparable_ the whole year.

That is, until Stephen has to go to his biological father's house, all the way in Poughkeepsie, out of state, for the entirety of the next Summer.

When Gavin asks him why he has to go, because he's never talked about him before, Stephen just shrugs with a frown drawn all the way down his face.

"I dunno. . .I guess he decided to remember I existed, or something. Haven't seen him in five years or so since he left me and my mom. Didn't even know he had custody and all that. _Whatever_."

That's the best explanation they can think of, and Gavin certainly understands what it feels like to have his father forget he exists most of the time. When the time comes, Stephen packs his bags and has them waiting on the last day of school. The aforementioned absent father picks him up in the front lot, leaning nonchalantly on some Dukes of Hazzard looking sportscar. He tells them they have ten minutes to say goodbye. His dad breaks out a pack of Pall-Malls and taps his foot impatiently while they part ways.

They look at each other awkwardly, reluctant to part, unsure of what either of them will do without the other, but especially Gavin.

"Well. . . guess I'll see you in August?" Stephen offers, shifting his duffel bag up and over his right shoulder.

"You bet, Frankie," and Gavin sticks out his hand, right pinkie extended toward Stephen, with a lopsided grin adorning his features.

They make a new pinkie-promise; that when Stephen gets back, it'll be like he wasn't even gone in the first place. Stephen smiles back, and they seal the pact, and promise not to change.

Gavin holds close the feeling of Stephen's hand brushing against his all the way through June, and July. He recalls the ghost of it on all the nights he spends lying awake, listening to his parents scream at each other two floors below him. He traces the burning lines of Stephen's phantom while it goes on for hours. They always break something, and it always makes him wish that Stephen would just _hurry up and get back already_. He asks Eli one night if they'll ever stop arguing when it gets particularly bad.

But Eli barely looks up from his school-sponsored laptop when Gavin asks, and the thousands of wires and bolts littered across their bedroom, mentally and physically sunk deep into some project of his that Eli's always got going on.

"No. No, I don't think they will."

He goes back to tinkering with some weird robot looking thing that could maybe look like a hand and arm, spread out on the chipped maple desk they'd bought from the corner store, and it's like Gavin isn't even there.

Which was business as usual, between the two brothers, so he doesn't even flinch while Eli solders and adjusts away. Gavin's used to this behavior from Eli. It's just how his brother is, really. He knows it's not personal.

And besides. . . Eli's going to _be_ someone, some day. Do _something_ with his life. Gavin's not going to be much of _anything_ , and you know what? That's okay. He knows it's easier if his genius brother doesn't really care about a nobody sibling on West Boston Boulevard, so that's how things are, and how they need to be.

~~Sometimes, at night, when he lets himself be just the smallest percent honest, Gavin thinks it would be nice to be the other brother, instead.~~

Gavin goes to sleep every night with the ghost of Stephen's promise that things will be back to normal when August comes back around.

. . .

They aren't.

Stephen comes back to school with bags under his eyes. When Gavin first sees him in the hall, he thinks it looks like Stephen hasn't slept one night, for the whole Eighth grade summer. When he greets him during first period roll call, some part of Gavin hopes that maybe they're from Stephen missing him too much; that he'd stayed up all those nights, just like Gavin had, wishing he could be back to his best friend as soon as humanly possible. That he was just as haunted by the specter of their promise as Gavin was.

When Stephen shakes his head when Gavin asks him, shows him the dozens of cigarette burns still blistering on his forearms instead, Gavin almost pukes from how fucking _stupid_ he is.

Gavin hates himself for even _considering_ the possibility of what he'd hoped before.

Not many notes get passed that year.

It's like Stephen's a whole new person, some days. He forgets to eat. Forgets to do homework. Gavin almost always makes an extra copy of whatever he works on, just in case. Stephen's pathetic excuse for a dad becomes the number one topic of their weekly bitching sessions, on the sparsely-shingled townhouse roof. Other days, they're back to their old selves, cracking shitty inside jokes and making fun of girls in the Middle School bathroom.

They try to keep their promise they'd made last May as best as they can. But something's _missing_ between them. Too much has happened, even if they never intended it to. 

Gavin wonders, for the first time, if this kind of loneliness is what it really means to 'grow up.'

He keeps on as his old, dorky self, and Stephen starts lifting weights, running to school every morning at 6:00am. When Gavin asks about the sudden interest in 'getting ripped,' Stephen nearly snarls the answer back.

"I'm not gonna let _anybody_ hurt me like that. Not _ever_ again. I need to fight back, Gavin. You know?"

So Gavin gives Stephen a hug, because Stephen starts shaking after the admission, and his one and only friend ugly-cries onto his shoulder, on the crappy roof, under a high September moon. Gavin traces circles in his back while his heart thuds wildly in his chest at the contact, and bile hits the back of his throat as he's disgusted with himself for even _thinking_ about the thundering in his chest while his friend is bawling his eyes out in front of him.

"Yeah, Frankie. I know. I know."

. . .

Stephen gets another three inches over the course of that year, and by the end of the first semester, he's already pushing 5'10". The cigarette burns fade away under a burnished, brown tan, and muscles that only get bigger all the time. Stephen finally tells his dad he never wants to see him again on his thirteenth birthday, October the 1st, and punches him right in the jaw. Gavin's never been more fucking _proud_ of anyone in his whole entire life.

They celebrate Stephen's birthday by stealing three cigarettes from his older brother's bedroom, and share them in victory perched in their tree that night, watching the traffic below.

By the time October 7th rolls around a week later, Gavin's birthday, Stephen's in such a better mood that he doesn't bother to remind him he's not said anything about Gav's birthday yet that year. But it's okay, he tells himself, because the best present he could have gotten is the smile that's come back to Stephen's face. When the occasion finally arrives, it turns out that only Eli remembers after all.

~~And it's okay, really.~~

"Hey, Gav. Happy birthday," Eli says that night when they're alone in their room, no fanfare from his parents or relatives that act like he wasn't even born.

Gavin inspects the pristine silver wrapping, and nearly cries at the sight of it, gently uncovering the small box within. Inside, there's a half-chewed pair of headphones, and a gaudy pink iPod shuffle from ten years ago with buttons that barely work, and Eli promises to fix the other functions on it for him before he leaves for college.

When Gavin goes to school the next day, shows it off and Stephen asks about the occasion, he reminds his friend that yesterday was his birthday with a sheepish grin, still unsure if he should even say anything, not wanting to make him feel guilty. Stephen sighs, and smacks himself, apologizing instantly for forgetting something so important.

"Fuck, man, I'm _really_ sorry. My dad showed up at my moms house last night drunk as hell and we had to call the cops. Goddamn freaking _shit_ show."

Gavin forgets all about his self-pity, and pats Stephen consolingly on the arm.

"Dude, Frankie, I had no idea. Hell, that shit's more important to deal with than my friggin' birthday man."

"Seriously though, I'm really sorry. Do you forgive me?"

Stephen holds out his hand, and the pinkie, and of _course_ Gavin does, because he's his friend, isn't he?

His _best_ friend.

And that's what friends are for.

. . .

When graduation looms around the corner that May, another inch of height gained for Stephen somehow, he nonchalantly asks Gavin what he thinks about this blond girl in their second period science class.

"Who, her?"

Gavin sticks out a finger and makes a face at a skinny blond girl hunched over an ancient Bunsen burner in the corner of their crappy science lab.

"Yeah. What's the matter, you don't like _blonds_ or something?"

Gavin shakes his head, and thinks of anything to say but the fact that he thinks he prefers _red_ hair.

"Nah, it's not that. My old man would kill me if I ever brought a girl around. You know how he is even with just me existing."

Or a boy, Gavin adds internally.

"Yeah, I feel that. I'm gonna ask her out today. . . Wish me luck?"

Gavin's gut twists. He feels his stomach drop into his feet, and tries to busy himself with the baking soda experiment in front of them. He manages to get an acid-dipped smile up on the corner of his mouth, fake as hell, dripping with envy, because now he knows Stephen likes _blonds_ , and his dead, disgusting, messy _brown_ hair will _never_ look as luminous as that girl's long shiny locks.

"Good luck, Frankie," he manages to choke.

He doesn't mean it. Not at all.

They end up going out when she says yes after class.

. . .

Gavin sees Stephen less and less. He sees the blond girl more, and more, and more. When the Summer before high-school finally starts, and Gavin asks if Stephen wants to hang out on the roof one night, he gets shot down for the very first time since they were boys.

"Sorry Gav, I'm taking the girlfriend on a hot date." Stephen wiggles his brows, and smirks suggestively, and Gavin's stomach does flips at the sight.

' _A hot date??_ '

Where? Where the hell would you go in Petosky-Ostego, on a date with _anyone_ , Gavin thinks to himself, wishing he was the one going wherever in the world they were that night, lying on the roof by himself, alone.

He doesn't know it yet, but Stephen won't ever join him on the roof again.

The break continues basically the same. Same excuses, same 'things to do with the girlfriend,' same reasons why Stephen is always busy.

When Freshman year starts, and they've only seen each other three times over the break, two in the grocery store on the corner, and once by accident, while Gavin was mindlessly walking around the block, he finally admits to himself that _having a girlfriend_ means Stephen just won't have very much time for him anymore.

And when his homeroom teacher reads out the class roster, on the first day of high school, and Gavin realizes there's two other 'Ks' in their class now right between their last names, he lies to himself, and says that the whole thing is okay.

He can find another way to make sure they see each other.

Even if Stephen is too busy to find a way himself.

~~After all, that's what friends are for.~~

So he tries out for the football team the second week of school, no clue at all how to throw the ball, out of place amongst the jocks and wannabe football stars, hoping, and praying to something, anything, he can get that time.

. . .

He doesn't make the team.

Apparently being 5'3," and not fast, or coordinated, and not even knowing half of the terms of the sport meant Gavin wasn't quite good enough to cut it, even for a team that had never made the playoffs for as long as it'd been a thing.

So when the coach takes pity on him at Stephen's request, seeing just how gutted Gavin is at the failure, he opts to run the water-cooler instead, running back and forth across the half-dead grass in that barely kept field, watching the senior boys, and the way they sweat in the afternoon sun.

~~And one orange haired freshman, who seems to outshine all of them.~~

He tries to make friends with some of his teammates. 

They all are nice, or neutral, say it's 'kind of awkward,' or they 'don't have time to hang,' or sometimes they don't really bother to think of some excuse, and ignore him instead.

No matter what Gavin says to the other boys, his words never really work.

None of his attempts seem to work right in any of his classes, either.

The only one that still talks to him, every now and then, is Stephen.

"Hey Gavin. How's your bro?" Said hastily in the hall.

"Yo, piece of gum for your bud?" Thrown out between class changes.

"You have the answers for Mr. Mackey's test in fifth period? Sweet, I owe you Gav," enunciated with a fist pump before Stephen bounds away down the social studies hall.

Stephen's scant few words are the most that anyone says to him, for the first two months of school.

And Gavin's glad for those moments, even how small they are. He comes to expect their brevity, and tells himself it's just selfish to expect anything more out of someone with such a bright future, so much to do.

~~Someone who isn't a dumb-ass loser, like him.~~

So when Stephen shockingly pulls him aside in third period one random Tuesday afternoon in October, and asks Gavin if he wants to ditch the rest of the day, and to meet him behind The Hulk (the nickname for the aforementioned dumpster, whoever thought of it, nobody knows) in thirty minutes, Gavin agrees without any hesitation.

"Yeah, Frankie, I'll be there."

"Cool, don't get caught. And uh, _maybe_ don't call me Frankie around the guys, okay? They might think it's a little weird."

Stephen ruffles his hair, almost half a foot below, and flashes that charmingly lopsided smile before sauntering off.

Gavin agrees hastily as he flies down the hallway, and practically vibrates with anticipation for the whole half-hour.

He feels like throwing up, he's so excited.

So when he finally finds an excuse to get the bathroom hall pass, and makes it out the door to the parking lot beyond, he wants nothing more than to impress the 'guys' that Stephen mentions from before. When they offer him the blunt, with whatever's inside, he takes it without question.

It's Stephen handing it to him, after all. Stephen's his _friend_. Stephen invited him to hang out, for the first time in ages, with other guys from the football team nonetheless. A crowd that's rejected Gavin, time and time again. This might be his only chance to get in. The one trial he's afforded to prove he's worthy of their time. So, Gavin tells himself as he pinches the paper between his forefingers, he isn't going to fuck things up. And besides. . .

Stephen's the only friend he's ever had.

What could go wrong?

He huffs it deeper than most anyone would consider wise for someone's first time, thinking it'll be no big deal. It's just weed. But as the acrid tang hits his throat, and something even fouler punches down his windpipe right after, a prickle of fear settles deep in his stomach, and the lungs that are on fire.

It's not just weed.

He's smelled that enough times on the block, or in the gym locker room to know what it's supposed to be like.

Instead of simple plant, and earth, it tastes like ash mixed with chemicals, and the rubber of burning tires, and it scorches lines in his throat all the way down while Gavin tries not to cough like some _amateur._

" _HOOOOLEY_ fuckin' _SHIT_ , dude."

"Gnarly, man."

"There ya go, Gav. Just sit back, and--"

Stephen puts a hand gently on his back, and rocks him onto the cracked slab behind him, laughing along with the other boys at just how much of _whatever_ it was he'd choked down.

Gavin lays back on the concrete, trying to tune out the snippets of conversation about his naïveté. Before he really knows it, somewhere between a 'you sure you really know this guy,' and 'dude, you gotta get him out here more, that's the funniest shit I've ever seen,' he realizes he can't really hear Stephen anymore. He can't hear anything at all but the wind, really, or feel the gravel beneath his arms. He gets locked out of himself, like an onlooker behind a fuzzy glass window, mimicking every move behind a frosted pane of glass. He stays there, for an eternity, or an hour, or ten minutes, he doesn't know, and just feels himself, from some place on high.

All Gavin hears is the sound of his own breathing, and the birds on the wind in the bright October sky, and the numbing waves that pulse low, and then sharp, and the pull of his body as he feels the Earth rotate beneath him, behind the dumpster, with the only friend he's ever known.

Even though he's out of it for the better part of two hours, the way the boys make it a point to tell Gavin, specifically 'goodbye' when they leave, makes him thrum with hope.

Maybe, _finally_ , he's done something right for a change.

And so, that's how Gavin Kamski finally makes it; by getting a reputation.

"Gavin will smoke anything you give him, and he handles it like a fuckin' beast."

So the group invites him behind the dumpster again, same time next week. There's two other boys that weren't there the last time, talking with the others as he walks up, chipped nail polish and pride stuffed into the pockets of his torn-up jeans.

"Yeah dude, you've gotta see it. Kamski can outsmoke ANYONE, I'm serious."

One of them is some low-life, burnout Sophomore, whose name he's never heard.

"No way man, this scrawny ass fuck? Let's fuckin' see it, then."

And so they do. The Sophomore passes out in fifteen minutes. Gavin sways upright, and barely holds onto his consciousness while they pat him on the back, screaming.

So they bring a bigger pipe next time, and a bigger challenger.

They watch on baited breath as sucks the smoke in, more than any of them would dare.

He almost passes out, but doesn't. The other kid falls over, and hits his head on the dumpster, splitting it open at the seam of his hairline. They scramble off in six directions when the blood begins to pool, but not before Stephen insists on having Gavin bring the poor shuck to the nurse, feigning some story about finding him on the way between classes. The kid ends up getting expelled, because of the zero tolerance policy.

They lie, and say they have no clue who he is, and the nurse is too busy with the blood gushing from the kid's head to notice just how red Gavin's eyes are around the edges.

So they find some other dark corner of the school to keep up with their little game, and Gavin's reputation only becomes more notorious with people who know who to ask.

They try to find someone, _anyone_ , that can out-smoke Gavin Kamski, take more pills (as they moved on to later in the semester), but they never really do.

It never matters how much the pills, or the booze, or whatever the hell is in the pipe makes Gavin feel like puking. After a while, it really feels _good_. Because Gavin gets to spend those precious hours hanging out with friends, with a little bit of liquid happiness somewhere in him to help push the loneliness away.

After all, they seem to have such a good time, sitting there high, without a care in the world. When Stephen vouches for him, says his name like he's a star, and Gavin's skin hums at the sound. . .

It feels a little bit like those days on the roof, from so long ago.

So he ignores the fact that he starts to wake up craving a hit before school, sneaks mouthfuls of bourbon from his dad's stacked liquor cabinet before bed, and goes on to and through Sophomore year, infamous as the most badass stoner in 10th grade.

It's not much, but it's more than he's ever been before, so he makes _sure_ that everyone who's anyone knows it.

. . .

Junior year comes, and Gavin turns 17 right before the football team _finally_ makes it to the championship.

It's the first time they've made the cut in almost thirty years, and it seems like all of Western Detroit's lined up to watch the deciding game, proud of those boys. Proud of Gavin's boy. His best friend. To celebrate, he smokes a whole joint before they take off on the busses to the field in the next town over, and steals a whole decanter of vodka from his father to pass out to the boys after the game. 

And he doesn't mind sneaking some into his water bottle during. Just to keep things fun.

When they get to the fourth quarter, Central West is trailing by five points. Gavin's biting his nails down to the cuticle while they try to make the score up, and he watches Stephen run back and forth across the field. He doesn't even need to see the number '9' on his Jersey to know it's him while they fly.

He'd know those legs in a heartbeat.

That back.

Those arms.

The orange hair peeking just barely from the silver helmet.

He's had them memorized since that first day in grade school.

They end up winning the game with a holy-grail thrown right into the end zone on 4th down of the last minute in the quarter. Gavin stands by the water-cooler, screaming his lungs out, still his job after three whole years, and watches Stephen rip the football a whole sixty-seven yards down the side of the stands.

The crowd looses its shit.

Gavin's heart almost explodes while it flies. It nearly bursts when it's caught, and the stadium erupts in absolute chaos.

The announcer shouts in the press box.

"AND THAT RIGHT THERE WAS STEPHEN KILLENWARD, STAR QUARTERBACK. 17 YEARS OLD, HE'S GONNA WIN THE INTERSTATE VARSITY MVP THIS YEAR FOLKS, MARK MY WORDS. THAT KID'S GONNA BE A PRO ONE DAY, SO REMEMBER HIS NAME, MICHIGAN. THAT'S KILLENWARD, WITH A 'K,' EVERYONE!"

Gavin knows that everything the announcer says is true, while the whole team piles on top of Stephen, and he stays on the sideline, veins thrumming with pride, and booze, and just a little pang of love that he's been harboring all these years, somewhere deep down. He can't help but stare, his stomach swirling with unspoken want, with the _yearning_ to be right there at Stephen's side, clutching him tight right along with every other guy on the field.

But he doesn't need to be to imagine the smile on his best friend's face, the elation that must be shining out of him, covered in sweat, and exhausted, and elated beyond words. Gavin's memorized all the different ways that his back, and his arms, and his chest moves when he lets the ball fly in practice. Every motion his mouth can make, that coy little smile. 

And, well, a few other ideas in his mind's eye.

That season, under the hot summer sun, Gavin stopped thinking about that lopsided grin all the time. He slowly yet surely drowned out the image of the pinkie-promise, and the Marvel Comics backpack. He stopped wondering if Stephen would come around to make up stories about cars, and lay on the roof, and watch the stars. Instead, he starts daydreaming of something more heavy that year. He starts to fill his thousand lonely nights with something different. Something he always told himself not to. But Gavin's seventeen, and even though he's got the normal 'group' he's built up from his dirty little secret habits, he's still lonely listening to his parents argue somewhere downstairs, Eli already moved out and off to college somewhere far away. He wishes someone else were there. He daydreams about those men in the Jeep, their life together.

He starts wondering what it would be like if Stephen picked him up, with his ridiculously built arms, and took him far away from where he was. What it would feel like if Stephen looked at him the same way he did his blond little bitch of a girlfriend, and crashed his mouth onto his, biting down hard on his lips, drawing blood because he's so desperate to be inside of him. What it would be like to be put against the wall, and fucked until he forgot about his parents, and his stupid last name, and everything that made him Gavin Theodore Kamski.

But it's all just fantasy. It's the greatest little lie he keeps deep within him, and doesn't let anyone know. 

He's in love with his best friend.

He's so deeply, _desperately_ in love with the man being hoisted onto the shoulders of his teammates and paraded around the stadium that the brilliant smile he flashes towards Gavin while he passes by almost makes him faint.

Gavin's happy for him.

He's happy for him beyond words while they change out of their uniforms in the locker room back at Central West, and the other boys help him pick out the perfect spot for the Championship cup on the sparse wall in the trophy room, not even bothering to get his opinion.

He's happy for him while his blond little girlfriend giggles on his arm, giving him a look that Gavin only knows too well from his own dark fantasies.

He's happy for him while the gang starts to pile into Davis Burgen's shitty car, all raring to get blackout drunk after the absolute win, and when it's Gavin's turn to pack himself in, they realize that there's no more room in the crappy SUV. 

"Fuck, do you want us to come back for you dude?"

Stephen asks him with slurred, messed up words, already halfway to sloshed from the vodka Gavin had presented them earlier. He's got his right hand on the passenger side-door, looking halfway concerned by the thought of leaving him behind, and halfway preoccupied with one hand creeping up blondie's thigh as they all pass the liquor around, and Gavin feels his pulse quicken at the sight of it.

~~He wishes she were him.~~

~~Why can't it _ever_ be him?~~

~~Why will it _never_ be him?~~

"Nah, it's cool, you guys have fun. My old man's gonna beat my ass if I get in much later anyway. You know how he gets when he doesn't control my whereabouts at every fucking second of the day."

The words come out choked, and wrong, and Gavin throws in an extra eye roll to hide the tear that's collecting in the side of his left eye, and wonders just what in the FUCK is wrong with him.

"You sure, man?"

But Stephen's eyes are already sneaking up blondie's skirt, and Gavin think's he's going to actually, literally hurl this time if he stands there a second longer, and waves them off while turning on his heel, with a half-hearted 'have a good time' thrown over his shoulder. Stephen calls out to him and tosses him the rest of the vodka, yelling that it's a 'consolation prize for being so cool with it' with a grin and slams the door without a secondary glance. They speed off behind Gavin, laughter and caution in the wind, yelling gleefully in the night towards whatever one of their houses stands empty for the evening, without him.

And it's okay.

It's. . . okay.

Gavin fiddles with the bottle for a moment before gingerly stepping off the curb, away from Central West's main parking lot. He gets about thirty feet before he grinds to a halt, great, welling tears dripping down the sides of his face.

. . .

~~It's. . .~~

Gavin pulls the cap off the bottle and throws it off somewhere in the grass to his right, where he knows he can't hope to find it again. He tips the liquid back, and back, and he drinks, and _drinks_ until the half-bottle turns into something more so resembling a third.

~~It's. . .~~

He walks for miles, taking off in the first direction his shitty, second-hand shoes manage to take him. He drinks. He walks. He kicks rocks, and tears burn at the corner of his eyes, and he really, truly feels like screaming.

~~It's. . .~~

"God FUCKING MOTHER- _FUCKER_!"

He wants to scream, so, he does, some miles later. He shouts. He yells bloody- _fucking_ murder amongst the burned out row-homes and sad, washed out pavement, with nobody else around. He cries into the wind, somewhere, whatever the hell street he's on, because he can't even read the words on the street signs anymore because he's so fucking drunk, not caring who's territory he's meandered into. He's so fucking _drunk_ , and _sad_ , and _god_ , more than anything he just wants to be anyone except the person he is.

But he's not.

Who is he?

He looks down at the bottle in his hands, vision swimming, legs swaying. He spies a hint of brown hair, brown eyes, sunken cheeks in the corner of the bottle, right by the label, cast in the reflection of the one unbroken street-light. He stares at himself, and wishes _anything_ else were looking back.

There's _Gavin Kamski,_ in the palm of his hands. He's _nothing_. He's nobody. And that's all he's ever going to be.

And it doesn't matter if that's _okay_. It doesn't matter if he _wants_ to change. There's nothing he can do about it. He's some fucked up _nobody_ , from a little _nothing_ family, whose greatest accomplishment is his rampant, festering addiction and pathetic, one-sided infatuation, from only the fourth-worst neighborhood in Detroit. _That's_ who's staring back at him. _That's_ the only person who ever will.

He smashes the decanter against his face, screaming. It splits into a thousand pieces. They bite into his hands. The glass gets caught between his fucked up shoes, and finds its way under his heel, digging into his soles. And one great, gargantuan piece slices deep into his face, across the bridge of his nose, cutting to the bone.

He never feels a thing.

He drops the shards at his feet to the street below, and blood follows him like a cruel fucking joke in little Jackson Polluck ripples along the side of the road. They paint him red, and stain his clothes, and there's no way he'll ever be able to win his '2017 state champions' shirt ever again.

That night, before he passes out behind some cracked out house, snuggled up on a porch that time forgot, playing with dandelions in the morning light that cover the cracked edges of the warped wood beneath him, he promises himself something. He promises to never give a shit about himself, ever again. Because if there's one thing he never wants to do, is waste time worrying about nobody. Nobody at all.

He never wants Eli to worry about _nobody_ again.

He doesn't want to waste another precious second of Stephen's time pretending to be _something_ to him.

If the only thing he'll ever be is nobody, well. . .

That's okay.

. . .

He wakes up sometime around dusk the next evening, eyes blistered, and straining against the failing light cascading in pinks and purples across the sky.

"Pffu--. . . phuck me," Gavin garbles through blood caked lips, split from screaming at the seams. He paws at an eye swollen shut from a steady stream of blood while he slept, head pounding in cruel ocean waves inside of him. He doesn't know how he gets up, or how he has the strength left to walk at all, but he makes his way back to the street, following the happy little trail of blood on the pavement he'd left the night before.

Somehow, he manages to find a street sign that isn't too faded from age, or lack of upkeep, and begins the three mile hike back East towards West Boston Boulevard. It takes him nearly two hours to get back home, between the necessary resting from the nauseating dizziness, and the need to puke nothing onto the grass in fifteen minute intervals.

When he makes it up the townhouse steps, he blissfully finds his house key still in his pocket, turns the lock, and begs his feet to carry him up the two stories towards his--

"Who in the FUCK do you think you are?!"

Gavin doesn't see the hand flying. He doesn't see the hulking shape of his father rise up from the tattered old chair at the bottom of the stairs, or the three packs of cigarettes he's been smoking out the front window just _waiting_ for the moment Gavin steps back in the door. He doesn't hear the sound of his father's rings smacking wetly against his newly opened wound on his face, or feel the way the flesh tears even further when it catches on one of the cubic zirconium gemstones on the band he keeps in his thumb. Gavin knows he must cry out, because air swirls around in his lungs, and comes back out, before he falls face first onto the stained wooden floor of the living room.

"You FUCKING little--"

There's a second blow.

"When I TELL you to come home at one FUCKING time, you bet your sorry little ASS you're going to--"

And a third

"Do what the FUCK I tell you. I'm your goddamn FATHER, and you'll do WHAT I WANT YOU LITTLE SHIT."

There's not a third hand that hits him, instead, a steel-toed workman's boot that collides with Gavin's sternum, and whatever bile might have been lurking around in his stomach comes back out for him to see on the cherrywood floor, riddled with little black flecks and stark, deep red.

And the boot keeps coming.

And coming again.

Until it stops, and Gavin can't even remember where he is, only that he _hurts._ He thinks later on that maybe, _maybe_ he tried to make up some shitty excuse, but at the end of the day, he knows his father would recognize the sweet stench of alcohol on one's breath as easy as breathing. He'd have known Gavin took his favorite brand from the cabinet. He'd have known he'd do anything to impress that 'stupid fucking friend' of his.

When his father gathers his shirt in his hand, and throws him down the curb, Gavin says nothing. He remains nothing, except for taciturn, and bleeding, and numb.

When Jonah Kamski yells at his son to 'never show his ungrateful fucking face ever again,' and the front door slams shut with his step-mother ignoring the whole scene from the kitchen, Gavin's ears are ringing. He's bleeding. He's shivering from the stress, and the alcohol still trying so desperately to burn itself completely from his system after abusing it, completely. Years from then, he'll wonder how he ever survived those few days. Why drinking what he did didn't cause him to aspirate on his own vomit that night, sleeping on that dilapidated old porch, out by the dandelions and tall weeds. 

Sometimes, when he'll think on it years down the road, he'll be glad the world didn't take him, then.

But other times, when he's more honest with himself, on nights where he remembers just how badly he fucked everyone's lives up, he'll ask why it didn't just off him, and spare everyone else the heartache to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSLATION: Au temps avant
> 
> To times before.

**Author's Note:**

> HEY! Do you like the art in this fic? Well I do art commissions on the side! I also do STORY COMMISSIONS if you've got an idea in your head, but don't know how to make it happen. If you'd ever like to hit me up for a cover, character reference, fic, or general piece use the link below to find me on other sites or comment here!
> 
> https://linktr.ee/auxblood


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